zlacker

>>neelc+(OP)
Firefox once was the only alternative to internet explorer. Then Google came along to become the new and improved alternative to the alternative and it became quite successful. MS eventually threw in the towel and their browser market share is lower than it has ever been. And most of that is now Google Chrome.

And now history repeats itself and we have Firefox being the alternative to the mighty Google Chrome and Google emulating more and more of what people hated about Microsoft's stewardship of Internet Explorer and dictating to users what they must have their eyeballs exposed to. In Microsoft's case that was obnoxious popups and popunders, shitty toolbars, and endless crap they came up with to somehow lock users into all that. Now Google is whining that nobody wants to see their shitty ads (correct) and somehow feels entitled enough that they can dictate browsers to respect their authority regarding what users can and cannot block. It's the same behavior. And the fix is the same: abandon the Chrome ecosystem. The more users do that, the more the web will basically remain outside of the control of Google.

>>jilles+Hq
It needs to be stressed that Firefox was getting direct support by Google at the time via patches, one reason that Google created Chrome was that Firefox took too long / was arbitrary about patches sent upstream.

Frankly I'm unsure if Firefoxs fate was to be EEL (embrace, extend, lock down) would we be worse off or better off than what we are right now with Chrome?