this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024

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Privacy

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Mull (Firefox Fork) doesn't load Google.com. Switching useragent to Chrome "solves the issue" (streamable.com)

submitted 1 year ago by VicentAdultman@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Today, I noticed that Google wasn't loading on Mull (Firefox Fork). Switching useragent with the extension Chameleon makes the page load again.

all 37 comments

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[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

maybe just dont use google

[–] VicentAdultman@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah but it's more complicated than that. Do you think the average user that for some reason uses Firefox will try to find out why his Google page isn't working? Last year Google was fined €2.5b due to unfair competition. This is not the first time, Google probably makes a lot of people switch doing these things. The top post of Lemmy is about Google turning itself into spyware and this just shows just how thats accurate.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

I honestly think more people are willing to switch than you think

[+] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com -6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think the average Firefox user won't be using anything Google (other than YouTube, but even then it'll probably be through alternative frontends).

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google is literally the default firefox search engine.

[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the average Firefox user is smart enough to change the search engine... And disable Mozilla's telemetry... And just not use stock Firefox...

[–] sxt@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

That is wildly optimistic

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would I disable Mozilla's telemetry though?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Because it is a privacy issue. Turning it off won't turn off all telemetry though. You need to get into the weeds or use librewolf.

Also make sure you turn off "experiments", enable scrict mode, I stall ublock origin, and change the search engine.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How is it a privacy issue? Reading their information page on telemetry data, they don't collect personal data except for temporary collection of the IP address, which gets deleted every 14 days. Do they collect more than they claim?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 year ago

There information page will just tell you what you want to here. Look at Firefoxs network access and you should see it still try to reach out.

[–] Anonymouse@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

While your statement is true, I install Firefox on any computer I support (family & friends) because I understand it better, can talk them through stuff on the phone and so I can install an ad blocker and not.have to deal with all of that. So now I need to explain to family and friends that Google is to blame, but they don't care and ask me to install "the normal browser". Ugh.

Also, I now have to deal with the Google-heads at work using this as an example of how chrome is the superior browser. Double ugh.

[–] viking 1 points 1 year ago

I feel you have a wrong perception of the average Firefox user.

It's not a recent fad for tech and privacy enthusiasts. The browser has been around for 2 decades, many people have been using it since forever and just don't switch to anything else. People around me are all on Firefox (>20% market share in Germany), and yet using the google ecosystem all over.

Granted, in the last 6-12 months privacy enthusiasts came over from Chrome, but that doesn't mean that this is their largest user base. Far from it.

[–] aPirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Completely, if op really needs to maybe use whoogle or startpage (there is some debate on if they are private or not since they were bought by system1, more info about it https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/ )

[–] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I use startpage and according to privacy guides its private

[–] Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wouldnt really trust them tbh. There are lots of better alternatives

[–] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't wanna use duckduck go and don't trust random searx instances, so I feel stuck with startpage

[–] mo_ztt@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Is this still true? I just tested and it works for me on LibreWolf, both for google.com and google.com.br.

Honestly, Google doing this as a deliberate anti-Firefox measure seems so wildly stupid and counterproductive on their part that I'd assume it was some failure (serving a slightly different version of the page to Chrome as for other browsers, and the non-Chrome side breaks for some reason) before thinking it was malicious.

[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

oops, you discovered a bug that only effects Firefox because we only test in Chrome. It's fixed now :P

[–] azron@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Heh. I was skeptical this was true fired up mull and sure enough still displaying nothing.

[–] AnEilifintChorcra@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago

It loads googles consent page for me. I got a blank page at first but I had to temporarily allow google connections in ublock origin to get it to load

[–] reactive_recall@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

It seems to be fixed now:

https://status.search.google.com/incidents/hySMmncEDZ7Xpaf9i32C

[–] GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Something something anti-trust?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Unlikely

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Duck.com

Much better results and faster

[–] pizzawithdirt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

DDG is just a Bing frontend. Using SearXNG is mostly better since you can get results from multiple sources.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I think they use some yahoo data too and some of their own crawlers.

Results are not always the same in bing and DDG especia

[–] pistachio@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Since a few months ago I get so many AI generated blog articles as top results with ddg (a lot with google as well, but less so)

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have a really hard time getting good local/region specific results for products, I mostly get US or UK results which are utterly useless to me since I'm not located either places. I've tried all sorts of shenanigans to limit the search to my area/country but it's not really effective.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

And so it begins.

I noticed this today, too. I didnft know how long it'd been going on, since I haven't tried to visit a Google page in a couple of weeks.

Thank goodness for SearX. This will also absolutely drive up the amount I visit Bing.

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that is sus...I just use !bang in duckduckgo though, and I get results even with Noscript and Ublock on...

!g some search

Works in Mull...but yeah google.com shows blank even with extensions turned off. Meh, I haven't been on Google in a long while now. Too many decent altermatives to care.

[–] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago

yep, it straight up doesn't load, what a shitshow

[–] kilowatt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Nice feature

[–] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

I was wondering why I was getting a blank screen earlier

[–] viking 1 points 1 year ago

Fennec still works without, even with privacy settings maxed out.