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uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

addons.mozilla.org

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Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#261

Post by burnished »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #175
planetafro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer DNS filtering over extensions as they generally want all permissions to essentially impersonate you at the browser level. Am I wrong?

DNS filtering sucks and can't filter ads served from the same domain as content, if all you can block is a FQDN, there's an absolute shit ton of trackers and ads that are getting past you. This is why piholes are awful. I don't know why they get such high praise - it's just a crappy DNS filter that blocks like what 40% of the ads you see?

I thought part of the point is that 40% or whatever never gets sent to your device in the first place - speeding up requests, reducing usage. Those seem like good things.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#262

Post by matheusmoreira »

mancerayder wrote: post #85

What kills me is even paid subscription sites like WSJ, Bloomberg, Seeking Alpha, show you ads even when you're a paying member. Why is it a war on our attention?

> Why is it a war on our attention?

Entitlement. They literally think they have a right to our attention. The audacity of these people never fails to impress. Paying any amount of money will only make them bolder.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#263

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

colinmhayes wrote: post #249
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I feel like half the people in my immediate circle of friends/family still don't use adblockers unless I help them set it up . And then that only holds until the next time they get a new device and I'm not there to help them do it again.

How old is your immediate circle? The truly internet first generation is only like 15-20 at this point.

Are we sure this "truly internet first generation" is primarily using laptops? If they grew up with an iPhone/iPad, there's no guarantee that they even have adblocking as an option.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#264

Post by Nicksil »

hanniabu wrote: post #232
openplatypus wrote: post #24

uBlock Origin, with CNAME uncloaking is the most powerful ad/tracker blocking tool. Browsing Internet without it is often time a scary experience. It does block our [Wide Angle Analytics]( https://wideangle.co/documentation/track-with-custom-domain ) tracker about which we are open about. And ... we are not against. Every user should have a right to self determination and control when browsing the Internet. Our track…

Is AdBlockPro needed with uBlock or does uBlock do everything ABP does and more?

>Is AdBlockPro needed with uBlock

Nope

>does uBlock do everything ABP does and more?

Yep

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#265

Post by openknot »

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #255
openknot wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”Marketing is a pox on the human mind that we’d all be better off without.” If you work, marketing pays part of your salary. A company can’t survive without it. Marketing includes the “Who’s hiring?” threads on the front page; word of mouth recommendations; and job postings on LinkedIn. If you’ve found a job that pays your bills, marketing played a role.

You pay your bookie a vig too? The fact that marketing exists isn’t something I’m debating. The fact it has wormed its way into all aspects of life is a sign that we lead sick lives, to me.

Your point, as written, was: "Marketing is a pox on the human mind that we’d all be better off without.” A reasonable response is that marketing has likely directly benefited your life.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#266

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

rpdillon wrote: post #134
planetafro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer DNS filtering over extensions as they generally want all permissions to essentially impersonate you at the browser level. Am I wrong?

> impersonate you at the browser level This is a new framing for me...I don't think of ublock as impersonating me, but rather representing me, like an agent in a transaction. While it's true that agents that represent you need to be trusted, there is also a huge upside: ublock origin can do things that DNS blocking cannot. Given ublock's (gorhill's) track record, I think this is an excellent deal.

Right; there's a reason we literally call the browser the "user agent", and uBlock is just a part of that. It's not impersonating me, it's a vital part of the browser being a useful tool for me.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#267

Post by hnuser123456 »

pavon wrote: post #256

I need to give uBlock another try. I use and love uMatrix, and was hoping someone would step up to maintain a fork of it, but six months later it is apparent that will not be the case (and is far outside my expertise). For some reason uBlock never clicked with me. The various global blocking settings I tried either broke too many sites or let too many annoyances through, and I found the process for allowing/blocking…

I don't know how long ago you used it, but it's install and forget and works great. Maybe once every few months I'll use it to hide a frame on a random site.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#268

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

burnished wrote: post #261
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS filtering sucks and can't filter ads served from the same domain as content, if all you can block is a FQDN, there's an absolute shit ton of trackers and ads that are getting past you. This is why piholes are awful. I don't know why they get such high praise - it's just a crappy DNS filter that blocks like what 40% of the ads you see?

I thought part of the point is that 40% or whatever never gets sent to your device in the first place - speeding up requests, reducing usage. Those seem like good things.

And, it's 40% that don't show up even on devices and browsers where you can't install uBlock.

Re: uBlock Origin becomes top addon on Firefox

#270

Post by burnished »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #254
openknot wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Companies survived for centuries without internet ads, tracking, targeting, etc.” As far back as ancient Rome, vendors still used advertising and marketing. This included word-of-mouth advertisements and billboards (such as in Pompeii before the volcanic eruption). [0] In the 1900s, newspaper advertising was a major source of advertising. Now that fewer people read print newspapers, advertising has shifted to inte…

> This included word-of-mouth advertisements This is not really advertising. It's more like a conversation. It's real people talking about their experiences. Advertising is when some phony who's on the corporation's payroll comes to you unsolicited and starts overstating the positives and downplaying the negatives.

There is two things going on here that are getting lumped under the same umbrella. 1) Modern marketing that uses a deep understanding of psychology to treat people as a series of levers to be pressed in order to get a certain reaction. 2) Service discovery. This can be really valuable. Just imagine you made something you were truly proud of and thought would bring value to others lives, or of something you already think is incredible. Finding out about it brought you value.

These two things both get called advertising but we have (quite reasonably) different feelings about them.

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