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The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

standard.co.uk

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Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#111

Post by gigatexal »

happybuy wrote: post #101
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

I develop a popular iOS and macOS ad blocker that block almost all ads[1] including all YouTube ads. Will be interested to hear if you've tried it out and what may have been missing? The only things we don't block at the moment is some non-English content and Adult sites. With a small team these haven't been the primary focus for the time being. Other than those though we should stop pretty much everything else. [1]…

The app works well enough but I deleted it. After setting it all up there’s no mention that it will work without the subscription. There’s no mode to say “continue without the subscription using the free services” just a very large button and a description of the price to subscribe. That’s hella sus. Also the very first screen doesn’t let you opt out of notifications or skip it with “setup later” etc etc — these customer / user hostile patterns had me so jaded I deleted the app and won’t go back.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#112

Post by Animats »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #76
Animats wrote: post #48

Make ad brokers share responsibility for losses due to scam ads. If the ad broker is unable to clearly identify the advertiser for lawsuit purposes, the ad broker should face consequences. They're assisting the criminal by helping them hide.

I like this

Some businesses useful to criminals have extra requirements for identifying customers. Pawn shops. Junk yards. Auctioneers. Auction services and ad brokers should be added to that list.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#113

Post by denkmoon »

giobox wrote: post #62
TacticalCoder wrote: post #36

Here are a few things I do to combat nasty websites: - blacklists entire domains using wildcards (using an "unbound" DNS resolver and forcing all traffic to my DNS resolver, preventing my browser to use DoH -- I can still then use DoH if I want, from unbound) - reject or drop a huge number of known bad actors, regularly updated: they go into gigantic "ip sets" firewall rules - (I came up with this one): use a little…

While these are all good practices, killing DoH conclusively on your home network is more difficult than you've made it seem, as ultimately all you can really do is use domain blacklists at your firewall. It's no longer as straight forward as just control port 53 traffic, not like you can realistically shut down 443... Blocking DoH is largely whack-a-mole and I think is only going to get worse as this and similar tec…

This is exactly why DoH is a trojan horse. You can't control it as a network administrator, all it takes is a piece of software to simply remove the controls for users to configure their own DoH and bam, end user has little to no control over how their applications perform name resolution.

Little pro-tip for anyone who tries to run their own private DoH infrastructure too, Firefox doesn't like RFC1918 addresses for the DoH resolver. Set `network.trr.allow-rfc1918=true` if you run DoH on a private IP.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#114

Post by walterbell »

kmlx wrote: post #87
dcdc123 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave browser on iOS has good blocking, but the browser experience itself is a bit of a mixed bag.

i’ve used this one for years: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/wipr/id1030595027 no issues, works great.

Another vote for Wipr on iOS for Safari ad blocking.

For system wide (including apps) ad blocking, Lockdown has a "local VPN".

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#115

Post by agiacalone »

madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

NextDNS (or a similar DNS ad-blocker solution like PiHole) works wonders on iOS.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#116

Post by radicaldreamer »

gigatexal wrote: post #111
happybuy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I develop a popular iOS and macOS ad blocker that block almost all ads[1] including all YouTube ads. Will be interested to hear if you've tried it out and what may have been missing? The only things we don't block at the moment is some non-English content and Adult sites. With a small team these haven't been the primary focus for the time being. Other than those though we should stop pretty much everything else. [1]…

The app works well enough but I deleted it. After setting it all up there’s no mention that it will work without the subscription. There’s no mode to say “continue without the subscription using the free services” just a very large button and a description of the price to subscribe. That’s hella sus. Also the very first screen doesn’t let you opt out of notifications or skip it with “setup later” etc etc — these cust…

Try Wipr (https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html)

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#117

Post by happybuy »

gigatexal wrote: post #111
happybuy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I develop a popular iOS and macOS ad blocker that block almost all ads[1] including all YouTube ads. Will be interested to hear if you've tried it out and what may have been missing? The only things we don't block at the moment is some non-English content and Adult sites. With a small team these haven't been the primary focus for the time being. Other than those though we should stop pretty much everything else. [1]…

The app works well enough but I deleted it. After setting it all up there’s no mention that it will work without the subscription. There’s no mode to say “continue without the subscription using the free services” just a very large button and a description of the price to subscribe. That’s hella sus. Also the very first screen doesn’t let you opt out of notifications or skip it with “setup later” etc etc — these cust…

Appreciate the feedback. We'll take it on board for improvements in the future.

We recently moved to a paid app model with a 30-day free trial available (from a freemium app model).

Understand that this is not as appealing as a free-forever product. We found that we had hundreds of thousands of free users and not enough paid users. After developing the app for many years under this model, we had to make some changes so that we could continue to fund the ongoing app development and updates.

The notification prompt can also be declined in the alert that appears; though we could make this more obvious with a clear 'Skip' button.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#118

Post by happybuy »

ryanianian wrote: post #107
happybuy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I develop a popular iOS and macOS ad blocker that block almost all ads[1] including all YouTube ads. Will be interested to hear if you've tried it out and what may have been missing? The only things we don't block at the moment is some non-English content and Adult sites. With a small team these haven't been the primary focus for the time being. Other than those though we should stop pretty much everything else. [1]…

Hey thanks for Magic Lasso. I've had it installed for years. Only after starting my app library from fresh did I realize how much I missed it (and it took me quite a while to figure out and remember that it was magiclasso doing the heavy lifting - easy to install and forget!)

Don't worry I'm the same!

If you use an ad blocker for a long time, it's easy to forget how bad the web can be without one.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#119

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

paxys wrote: post #106

Those who are a bit tech minded – consider adding DNS filtering on your home network (using pi-hole or something else). It has drastically changed my web experience for the better, including across iPhone apps, smart TVs and other surfaces where ad blockers can't help.

I see this advice a lot but I can't imagine it working better than using a system level adblocker like AdAway on my phone. (Smart TVs I understand, though mine seem to be unusually ad-less compared to what I've heard Samsung does).

What if you're out and about disconnected from WiFi? What if you need to turn the thing off for a sec to click on a sale/promotion in an email?

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#120

Post by arm »

madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

I haven’t used the iOS version of Orion myself (only the macOS version), but uBlock Origin + Orion would be the equivalent for iOS:

https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#iosext

https://browser.kagi.com/

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