Chrome 64 Released With Stronger Popup Blocker, Spectre Mitigations (bleepingcomputer.com) 102
Google on Thursday pushed an update to its marquee Web browser Chrome, now at v64, which offers a handful of new features including an improved ad blocker. From a report: Most of the new features included with Chrome 64 are meant to improve the browser's support for the ever-changing web standards that drive the modern Internet. For example, Chrome 64 is choke full of support for new browser APIs, new CSS properties, new JavaScript (ECMAScript) features, and changes to Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. [...] Other big changes that shipped with Chrome 64 are on the browser's security side. For starters, Chrome 64 includes mitigations against the web-exploitable Spectre flaw. Further, Chrome 64 also comes with a bolstered popup blocker that can now block tab-under behavior, being much more efficient at blocking malvertising redirects.
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Be happy on Safari ;)
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I like your email sig... Perhaps I could interest you in reading mine... - Just say'n...
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There's also Safari, but you'd have to buy a Mac, iPad or iPhone to be able to use it.
If you think Safari is not a valid option because it requires macOS, then Edge is also not a valid option because it requires Windows.
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Edge doesn't need a particular brand of computer (Score:2)
If you think Safari is not a valid option because it requires macOS, then Edge is also not a valid option because it requires Windows.
I don't see the equivalence. Edge can be thought of as a $119.99 browser that runs on almost any x86-64 PC (and comes with an operating system called Windows at no additional charge). Safari requires specifically an Apple brand computer.
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Except Edge on iOS is only a program wrapped around webkit.
But I did forget Edge was also on Android, so +1 informative to you.
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The vast majority of plugins are available for FF57+ now.
57 also boosted performance significantly, but 58 took it to a whole new level. It's way beyond Chrome now.
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I keep hearing this, but I have yet to actually find a Firefox installation where this is true in practice.
When it comes to Firefox 57, I've tried a variety of combinations of upgraded installations, fresh installations, no extensions, ad-blocking extensions, on OSes like Windows, Linux and macOS.
I can't think of a single instance where Firefox 57 was noticeably faster than Chrome on the same system. A
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I use Cookie Clicker as my benchmark. Set it to Christmas and turn on audio. Does the reindeer sound play before the reindeer leaves the screen? On Chrome the deer was gone by the time the jingle quit and almost gone by the time it started. On Firefox, the deer was halfway across the screen. Click a wrinkler. Does it respond to every click? Triple click one. Did it pop? It should, but on Chrome it sometimes takes four-five clicks. Get a cookie storm. Does it even react to you clicking the cookies b
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Of course, Firefox always fails the one and only web browser benchmark that actually matters: how fast users find the browser to be when browsing web sites.
This is bollocks, it is Chrome that fails the one and only web browser benchmark that ACTUALLY matters: not crashing all or at least a large portion of your tabs multiple times a day. I switched away from Firefox before 57 because of how buggy it got but it was still better than Chrome.
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I can't think of a single instance where Firefox 57 was noticeably faster than Chrome on the same system. And that's what I'm comparing it against: Chrome. I don't care if Firefox 57 is faster than Firefox 56.
Chrome is responsive. It fetches and renders pages quickly. It can handle many tabs being open at once. It does this while using comparatively little memory.
Firefox 57 has been the opposite, in my experiences with it. I find its UI to be slow and lagging. Pages feel like they take so much longer to load. I've seen it use multiple GBs of resident memory after limited browsing.
Well, I don't know your specific setups, but FF57/58 are definitely faster on all of the machines I've tried it on, including my 2011-era Phenom II desktop (Linux Mint), my Thinkcentre M72e (i5-based, Linux Mint) media PC, my Thinkpad T440 (Win7/Linux Mint), and my girlfriend's Latitude 6430 (Win7). None of these machines are monsters by any metric (the desktop and the T440 have SSDs, though), but FF runs amazing on them, while using less memory than Chrome. And it feels faster.
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In 58 they put the graphics in a separate thread so rendering can potentially be done by a separate CPU. Here are the details: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.c... [wordpress.com]
One thing that some might have missed is that with 57 one can enable tracking protection (not just for private browsing) and that can have a significant impact on real world performance.
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Vivaldi, Brave, and modern versions of Opera are all basically just Blink
But that's the good part of Chrome. I switched to Vivaldi from Firefox personally.
Firefox is no good, especially after Firefox 57 totally ruined its formerly-rich extension ecosystem. In my opinion its UI and performance are also terrible. So it's not an option.
Performance of Firefox is actually alright again, better than Vivaldi is for me now even though Vivaldi was faster when I jumped ship. The most critical extensions for me do have versions for current Firefox also. The problem with Firefox for me now is that I have lost trust in Mozilla having the users' best interest in mind and by extension in Firefox.
Choke full of support? (Score:5, Informative)
Chock-full. Editors go back to school, please.
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It's truly chocking how poor the /. editors have become
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Yes. Yes I do.
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You mean like the lack of unicode support? For a nerds-oriented website, it's a shame this problem still hasnâ(TM)t been fixed after so long.
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It's been a while and I don't remember the last time it happened but /. editors used to be able to update the summary text.
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*youâ(TM)re*
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For years we've had Firefox users saying that they just want a fast, extensible, secure browser.
That's what Firefox is now, it's really great and just getting better.
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I gave up on it after the 5,000,000th time that needlessly altered the UI on their browser. Just this last release they decided to ignore the user's MS Windows preferences per window colors. Idiots are what they are. Apparently they can't understand I set up my desktop environment in a certain manner for a specific purpose.
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Firefox 57 replaced a rather powerful extension system with one that's very limited and crippled. Not only were pretty much all existing extensions broken by Firefox 57, but the new extension system is so limited that there are critical Firefox extensions that couldn't even be reimplemented properly due to missing extension system functionality!
What functionality are you missing? All the plugins I want still work.
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NoScript for one
NoScript [mozilla.org] works in Firefox 57+. Giorgio Maone, the author of NoScript, says Firefox's add-ons API is the best of any current browser [hackademix.net]. So that one's solved for you.
NoScript works in Firefox current (Score:2)
I've got NoScript running in Firefox right now. [noscript.net]
It was broken for a day or two, and had UI issues for a couple days after that, but now I like it even better than I did before FF57's plugin apocalypse. Change was good for it.
Of course, I gave the author useful feedback and paypal'd him a donation to support the work, so I'm not surprised that the tool works fine for me.
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No add ons replace the functionally of these. I am not using their new shit UI.
Ubufox and Keybinder (Score:2)
Two extensions that I have used have not been ported. One was not ported because it depends on legacy APIs known to lack a counterpart in WebExtensions.
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Firefox is somehow "faster"
It sure is. Try turning on Firefox's Tracking Protection. Set it to "always" and you will halve your average page load time [mozilla.org].
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Then there's the Firefox of today.
Oh good. Another pointless, content-free "Firefox kicks puppies!" post from an anonymous coward.
Yet breaking nearly all extensions
All the extensions I use continue to work, and so do over 8,000 other extensions. Your experience is not universal.
For years we've had Firefox users saying that they just want a fast, extensible, secure browser.
And that's what Firefox is. Maybe get outside a bit more and get some perspective.
A rare thank you to Google. (Score:1)
Further, Chrome 64 also comes with a bolstered popup blocker that can now block tab-under behavior, being much more efficient at blocking malvertising redirects.
Now, I must appreciate Google for this roll-out. Who can say they do not listen? The listened to me and have now provided a way to block a number of offending sites I visit.
For others, these sites surely include pr0n sites...
stopping video autoplay? (Score:1)
The single biggest annoyance for web today (to me) is all the damn sites that autoplay video just because you view a page.
I want a setting that stops all media, video/audio from autoplaying.
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YES! YES! YES!
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Disable the fucking plugins.
I too have had Flash and other plug-ins on click-to-play for over a decade, but HTML5 video is not "fucking plugins."
Install something like HTTP Switchboard to block shit you don't want.
HTTP Switchboard is no longer maintained. Its replacement is an ad blocker. Is there an ad blocker that blocks only ads that aren't self-hosted (like Firefox tracking protection does) and autoplaying videos?
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What plugin? This is an html5 issue.
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Now if only they had adblock on Android (Score:2)
I don't need a popup blocker anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
I need something that blocks those overlays (whatever it is called) that ask you to sign up for a website.... etc.
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That doesn't help when the anti-adblock script doesn't insert the article's text into the DOM at all until the ad is deemed viewable.
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It doesn't stop them (Score:2)
I was all ready to install that but it doesn't do what it claims. It says click to close those overlays? You already have to click them to close them. I don't want to fucking see them in the first place. I know its some css bullshit so can't we have a plugin that blocks that call?
SPECTRE (Score:2)
For starters, Chrome 64 includes mitigations against the web-exploitable Spectre flaw.
Where other browser were updated last week...
Re:SPECTRE (Score:4, Funny)
"Chrome, now at v64" (Score:1)
Well this is really exciting news, but I can't help noticing that number 64. Version numbers have always been a mystery to me. I have software that's been evolving for 20 years and now it's up to v1.234. No consistency! These numbers are meaningless to anyone not intensely involved in the development of a particular system.
Would it be possible to standardize on a system? Dates seem logical. A version announced today, for instance could be labeled 'Chrome 180125'. Everyone everywhere would know when it was m
C64 (Score:2, Funny)
I saw the headline as Commodore 64.
I never had one but did have a VIC-20.
Must disable autoplay video (Score:2)
I don't want autoplay video on any tab.
I hate auto play video that relocates the frame as I scroll it off to keep off my view.
Dear Editor -- please read your titles. (Score:3)
Google on Thursday pushed an update to its marquee Web browser Chrome, now at v64, which offers a handful of new features including an improved ad blocker.
Chrome has an ad blocker? I think given Google is also an advertising company, bundling something that blocks other companies' ads would raise some FTC eyebrows. How about a pop-up blocker, like it says in the title?
Blocks only ads in annoying formats (Score:2)
As I understand Google's announced plan for Chrome [google.com], the eventual intent is to block ads on all sites that use ad formats that the Coalition for Better Ads [betterads.org] has determined annoy viewers. Currently the Better Ads Standards deem the following formats annoying:
How to find advertisers that allow self-hosting? (Score:2)
I'm interested in switching my blog to hosting its own ads. How would I go about finding sponsors? Last I checked, well-known advertisers preferred to buy inventory from ad networks and ad exchanges so that they could reach multiple publishers' sites with one buy, target very specific inferred demographics regardless of correlation with a particular site's subject matter, and benefit from economies of scale in click fraud detection. If you have operated a site that hosts its own ads, how did you overcome th
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Chrome has an ad blocker? I think given Google is also an advertising company
Google's advertising adheres to some basic form of standards. Chrome has always attempted to block outright malicious and exceedingly annoying adverts. It doesn't block any ads which would be allowed on adsense which is why the FTC would have no basis to take any action.
As for pop-up blocker, that has existed since long before Chrome jumped to the update major version on every release bandwagon. In fact I think it was there from day one and it has been fine tuned many times over the years to defeat an ever
63.0.3239.108 - good for 340 tabs (Score:1)
Close some tabs (Score:3)
You don't need to have 340 tabs open. That is the equivalent of having a house filled to the ceiling with junk mail on the off chance you might need to refer back to it one day.
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Oh that wasn't condescending at all. Of those 340 tabs how many contained worthwhile content to your research? I'm guessing >90% do not.