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Comment by Kbelicius | Hacker News Reader

> It's worth noting that the maintenance of the "lite" version is at some nonzero risk of burnout for its developers, ironically in part due to Mozilla being unnecessarily hostile:

Why would you even use the lite version on firefox when the original works?

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I'm doing all my banking in a separate Firefox profile where uBlock Origin Lite is the only installed extension. So there a zero extensions that have permission to access the pages or requests.

Of course I'm still using the normal uBlock Origin in my main browsing profile.

Seems safer to clone the source code and build the OG locally if banking security is that important.

Lite doesn't require any permissions.

Security and possibly performance, which is the selling point of MV3.

Yup, the MV3 version requires zero permissions and in theory should be faster. These are real benefits that for some reason nobody will admit exist.

Saying anything positive about MV3 or the lite extension seems to get you downvoted without explanation though, which is a nice example of how absurd this site is when it comes to anything related to Google.

Sometimes I think downvoting should require leaving a comment and reason, because I can't see any reason to downvote this other than "google bad".

Reason: Removing user control from browsers is strictly bad.

Sounds like the real issue is "we are replacing X with Y" and there are use-cases for both X and Y to co-exist.

and just conveniently, X has some features that the owning company doesn't like as it is antithesis to their business model. Therefore, by replacing X with Y, and touting some performance improvements (which is real, but marginal), they get to remove X with plausible deniability.

They should let them co-exist but probably they figured out it is just easier to kill V2 extensions all together. What a shame.

you get to downvote?

When you get Karma of 501 or more…

Which GOOG team are you on?

He is on Extensions team. lol

> nobody will admit exist.

This is not true.

People talk about the upside of the declarative API plenty, but adding one function doesn't mean removing another, and the conflation required to use that as a defense of google is what gets downvotes.

"in theory" is not a real benefit

Is uBOL as ad-removing and privacy protecting as uBO?

We aren’t talking just an extension here. If it didn’t exist, that would make web browsing insufferable to many. It is a part of web browsing itself. Let me put it as clearly as it can be:

***

uBO is a Holy Grail and gorhill is our Jesus Christ.

***

If MV3 (and further development) tries to touch it in any inappropriate way, comments promoting it deserve 5x downvote mutiplier without the usual -4 limit.

I get the security benefits, but the performance benefits seem weak. Won't the benefits of not having to run as much js to do the filtering be cancelled out by having the run additional advertising code that isn't being blocked by the lobotomised adblockers?

The "original" UBO is basically the mother of all supply chain vulnerabilities and whenever the inevitable exploit happens, everyone who thought they were a connoisseur of privacy is going to get completely pwned. UBO Lite works without being a gigantic security vuln.

Some people may think what you're saying is outlandish, but it's worth remembering that this is pretty much what already happened to Ublock (which led to the forking of Ublock Origin and return of gorehill)

Not saying it cannot happen, but in Firefox, it is a “Recommended“ extension which gets reviewed per release. A sophisticated attack could slip through, but a ham fisted takeover is unlikely.

It's also worth mentioning that Firefox doesn't force you to auto-update add-ons, but Chrome/Chromium do. (There was a hack workaround to keep Chromium from updating, but I forgot what it was or if it still works. It wasn't a trivial option in the browser itself like it should be.)

I use a certain extension. An update turned the extension into payware, locking 90% of the features behind a paywall. So I refuse to update it and instead continue to use the revision that still has all the original features. I would be absolutely incensed and outraged if my browser insisted on forcing me to update this extension!

Surely there are better ways for a developer to make money off of an existing extension without suddenly locking previously available functions behind a paywall. Perhaps instead paywall NEW features? Or ask for donations?

New features requires work. Donations require charity, which doesn't exist in the mind of someone who does that

The "original" Chrome is basically the mother of all supply chain vulnerabilities and whenever the inevitable exploitation happens, everyone who thought they were a connoisseur of security is going to get completely pwned.

But I suppose in your clown world security model the big US corporations who have proven again and again that they will act against your best interests are the only ones to be trusted while individuals with a proven track record must be sandboxed at all costs.

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