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Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#211

Post by st3fan »

golergka wrote: post #185
st3fan wrote: post #54

We just pushed the button on stage at the Mozilla All-hands. It should by live in most countries now. https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337 Ask us anything you want to know about this product. Also, keep an eye on the Github repo. https://github.com/mozilla/focus We are still watching the Keynote but will flip the switch soon.

So much Swift! All iOS developers I know are hopeful about Swift, but say that they wouldn't use it for a serious, large-scale project yet. (I'm a Unity developer that only occasionally touches native iOS or Android code). What was your experience with it?

Swift is ready. For a much bigger project in Swift, look at

https://github.com/mozilla/firefox

It was a rough road while we went from Swift pre-1.0 to 2.1 but it was totally worth it.

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#213

Post by st3fan »

steveklabnik wrote: post #199
jakejake wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you submit your app you can opt for Apple to release it immediately upon approval, or wait for you to manually release it. Mozilla likely submitted the app a couple of weeks ago and just hit the release button today.

There was a joke made on stage about how it was submitted weeks ago, and they were sweating bullets, because it still hadn't quite gotten approval, and then finally, it came through yesterday.

Unfortunately the app review process is not very transparent. It is unclear why it took so long. It is best to not try to understand it's inner workings.

But for comparison, Firefox for iOS, a MUCH larger app, has had perfectly predictable review times for the past couple of releases: 7 days in the queue, few hours for review.

Focus was 7 days in the queue and then a couple of weeks In Review.

It happens. To all of us.

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#214

Post by st3fan »

milescrabill wrote: post #74
st3fan wrote: post #54

We just pushed the button on stage at the Mozilla All-hands. It should by live in most countries now. https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337 Ask us anything you want to know about this product. Also, keep an eye on the Github repo. https://github.com/mozilla/focus We are still watching the Keynote but will flip the switch soon.

That Github URL isn't working. Cheers to the team! (I'm way off in the corner of the room) :)

Should be live now! And we are working on some better landing page.

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#216

Post by newscracker »

profeta wrote: post #209
newscracker wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, can't sum up in two words, but can sum it up in two points. This would be better because: * It's by Mozilla, and it's more likely (probability wise) to be maintained and kept up-to-date than those that happen to be a single person's hobby project. * I believe that big players in the web like Mozilla and EFF (eff.org) really fight for us, the common people. :) The more these things become popular, especially fr…

what about besides "known household name"? any technical merit? anything you know you do better than the alternative, for a fact? and in the process of fairness, any other blocker doing anything better that you plan to add to yours?

Technical merit? I don't really know. This is based on the open source tracker list from Disconnect (disconnect.me).

FWIW, I was never into paying for an ad-blocker on iOS since that comes with its pitfalls. I have tried a couple of other free ones, and I did like Adblock Fast [1], the one I was using until Focus by Firefox and the one I still have. It's open source and is available for Chrome (not iOS), Opera (not iOS) and Safari (iOS 9). I'd suggest reading through the GitHub page to see some stats as well as the philosophy (of not making money or compromising it with acceptable ads). [2]

[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-fast/id1032930802

[2]: https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#217

Post by oldmanjay »

CaptSpify wrote: post #210
oldmanjay wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it seems nearly impossible to believe that you honestly feel that the OP and the reply are talking about the same topic. One is discussing experiences with the platform discussed in the article, and one is the "I don't even have a tv" comment in another guise. In case it isn't clear to you, "I don't even have a tv" doesn't contribute anything to the conversation.

It seems nearly impossible to believe that you don't think they are talking about the same topic. One is discussing a platform, and the other is stating why he won't use that platform. I respectfully disagree that it's not contributing.

The contribution is "this person does not use iOS" which is not particularly helpful in any way, and has resulted in an off-topic metabranch. This is the very definition of not contributing to the discussion.

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#218

Post by CaptSpify »

oldmanjay wrote: post #217
CaptSpify wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems nearly impossible to believe that you don't think they are talking about the same topic. One is discussing a platform, and the other is stating why he won't use that platform. I respectfully disagree that it's not contributing.

The contribution is "this person does not use iOS" which is not particularly helpful in any way, and has resulted in an off-topic metabranch. This is the very definition of not contributing to the discussion.

The contribution is an implied "I think that stance by the manufacturer is ridiculous, and I won't even engage them." It's helpful because it highlights the ridiculousness of the manufacturers system. Sure, it could have been articulated better, but I think it's still contributing.

> which is not particularly helpful in any way, and has resulted in an off-topic metabranch

I would say that your statement has done more to forward this metabranch than the original statement ever did.

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#219

Post by mconley »

profeta wrote: post #208

Spending so much time on a platform that you have no control and is sure to undermine you is a waste of open source project resources. Specially one that is handled indirectly such as mozilla nowadays. if it were users submitting patches or bugreports, by all means! Spend all the time in the world to make your IOS experience better. But people donate, and the people living off that money choose arbitrarily to spend t…

> But people donate, and the people living off that money choose arbitrarily to spend those resources on IOS, that is just plain irresponsible.

Note that when people donate, they're donating to the Mozilla Foundation, an entity that does _not_ work on Firefox directly, but does advocacy, outreach and education work. This is where your donation goes.

Mozilla Corporation (which is solely owned by the Foundation) works on Firefox (Desktop, Android, iOS, Focus, etc), and does not benefit from the donations that are sent to the Foundation. That work is funded almost entirely by revenue generated by partnerships with search providers.

People who want to donate to the corporation do so via patches, bug reports, testing, documentation, evangelism, etc.

(Full-disclosure - I'm a Mozilla Corporation employee, but speaking for myself and not on behalf of the company)

Re: Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS

#220

Post by uremog »

angersock wrote: post #165
RKearney wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 5 and 5C do not have 64 bit processors, which is a requirement for Content Blockers.

Apparently blocking ads is harder than landing on the Moon. :|

The moon doesn't generate as much money as ads.
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