We’ve been anticipating it for years, and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.
Now that it is finally happening, many seem to be oddly resigned to the idea that Google is taking away the best and most powerful ad content blocker available on any web browser today, with one article recommending people set up a DNS based content blocker on their network 😒 – instead of more obvious solutions.
I may not have blogged about this but I recently read an article from 1999 about why Gopher lost out to the Web, where Christopher Lee discusses the importance of the then-novel term “mind share” and how it played an important part in dictating why the web won out. In my last post, I touched on the importance of good information to democracies – the same applies to markets (including the browser market) – and it seems to me that we aren’t getting good information about this topic.
This post is me trying to give you that information, to help increase the mind share of an actual alternative. Enjoy!
No, HVEC / H.265 codec support so no modern 4K security camera or plex/jellyfin etc high quality video support.
According to caniuse.com, it works now in the Nightly builds and can be enabled in other builds via the
media.wmf.hevc.enabledpref inabout:config.I use Firefox Dev Edition and I think it’s enabled there. But either way, you can enable it on stable.
Night, windows only, and needs to be enabled with about: config… ie it almost has some support maybe. Also doesn’t work via webrtc so it doesn’t actually help me with the viewing the security cam feeds.
champagne problems.
Core web app compatibility vs … “enhanced” ad blocking. MS teams and some other business tools also don’t support Firefox but work fine in Chrome and Safari.
It is something the Firefox team needs to work on again. I used Firefox from when it was released until Chrome came out and mopped the floor with it. At the time Firefox became the bloated beast and went through a reset.
Unfortunately trying to have a firm stance on not implementing HVEC when they no longer had the largest market share was a bad move and they seem to be slowly back tracking on that.
MS Teams not working as well in Firefox is a “we want you using Edge or Chrome” Microsoft issue, not a Firefox issue.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of enterprise-sector MS websites that have went from works fine on Firefox to completely broken on anything but Chrome and Edge very quickly after Edge became Chrome with a lick of paint.
I work in IT I am well aware.
So it’s not something Firefox needs to work on, it’s something Microsoft should be punished for. The bulk of these sites for fine if you spoof your useragent to look like edge or chrome, proving it’s nothing to do with browser capability.
They’re using their market position to sabotage a competitor.
Probably no ads on your self-hosted frigate/jellyfin pages though, so you can just keep using chrome for that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
H265 isn’t the only option there. AV1 is great and fully supported by Jellyfin (and I imagine Plex?)
H.265 is the defecto standard on Security cameras, and I am not going to migrate content to AV1 that is already in H.265.
Use VLC to view the video feed for your cams, better experience overall for that
Not when you are using an NVR with scrubbing and everything in the web UI. https://frigate.video/
All in all it would be an inconvenient workaround for something that already works seamlessly across Safari, Edge, Chrome etc.
damn dude, all you do is bitch. maybe get a different camera setup.
How is giving a sober and straightforward explanation of why he can’t use Firefox “bitching”? The simple fact is “switch to Firefox” isn’t a solution for everyone in every case. Burying your head in the sand about that benefits nobody.
They can enjoy some ads then, I guess. But it was the general attitude of unwillingness to entertain suggestions and just shutting down every one.
It is generally hard to have an opposing opinion or need discussion on the internet without people feeling attacked and start name calling.
Na man I have modern 4k cameras, I need a modern browser… They have literally build chipsets around this and many standards call for h.264 or h.265. That isn’t changing.
Mozilla decided over 8 years ago not to support HVEC because of patents…
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332136
Jellyfin can handle the transcoding to AV1 where needed. Albeit that’s a bit less ideal than direct play as you need the hardware to transcode.
Not spending hundreds to upgrade my server to support 4K to 4K transcoding. Even accelerated on a VERY recent CPU or GPU Encoding in AV1 is costly while at the same time decoding H.265.
If it’s a personal machine in which you have a choice on browser why not just use one of the native Jellyfin apps?
Every other major browser is an overcommercialized pile of crap (or built atop the same) that can afford to pay for the licenses to use HEVC or has no qualms shipping proprietary code with their software that they don’t control.
Also apparently on Windows you can enable experimental HEVC hardware decoding support. You’ll need to install “HEVC Video Extensions” (from Microsoft themselves) ($0.99) in the Windows App Store and toggle “media.wmf.hevc.enabled” in about:config.
Use the desktop client or jellyfin-mpv-shim and you’ll get HEVC support and superior image quality.
https://caniuse.com/hevc
looks like the bigger issue is hvec itself. Also the support is extremely spotty with all the other browsers as well, with it still only having limited support in Chrome as well depending on your hardware.
Or just use av1 instead. I’ve literally never run into this as an issue before lol.