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Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#111

Post by unsungNovelty »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #44
NikxDa wrote: post #5

I was going to give credit to the direction Mozilla was taking here after their... questionable decisions in the past few year(s). Only to see that this is neither generally available, nor can you use it without enabling telemetry. I don't know who makes these decisions inside Mozilla, but I just don't get it.

[flagged]

I hate. Absolutely hate that you can't say anything directly anymore without sugarcoating stuff in HN. Downvotes follow. I mean, the hell is HN for then?

Even the most obvious stuff needs to be said like... I don't know... but it looks like Google might be slightly bad here.

---

The CEO literally paid her hell a lot of money while she sold MDN to competition. While Rust to competition. While market shared shrinked from 9% (or 7%, forgot the exact number) to where it's now. Citing - NO MONEY!!!

We still have her controlling Mozilla right even though she is not CEO? And apparently we are not supposed to criticise em.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#112

Post by Melatonic »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #96
pebble wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2017 Mozilla silently installed an extension promoting the TV show in everyone's Firefox.

The extension did not do anything unless you put in a secret setting. It wasn't promoting anything. If this had been a hardcoded easter egg there would have been no real complaints. But showing up as a mystery extension spooked some people, and then misreporting made it spread a lot further than if all the reporting was accurate.

I just rewatched Mr Robot and that actually sounds cool. What was the secret setting ?

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#113

Post by red369 »

skarz wrote: post #51
flyingshelf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use YouTube in Safari then? Haven't seen ads in years. Plenty of options to block them already.

Does YouTube in Safari play in background/with the screen off?

I like "Vinegar - Tube Cleaner" for this.

It's not a perfect solution - I have occasionally noticed it leading to some buggy behaviour in the YouTube/YouTube Music sites using Safari, but nothing anywhere near as bad as using those websites without it!

The only odd behaviour I can call to mind was one time that it continued playing audio when I answered a phone call. It was easy to stop the music playing, and the other person on the call couldn't hear the music. I was actually disappointed that the other person couldn't hear the music, and I've been disappointed every time I've taken a phone call since and the music hasn't continued playing. I wish that was a feature :)

I think Vinegar was well worth the small one-time price, and I like supporting the developer. I've heard that Brave allows playing with the screen off, but I like my setup enough that I don't want to install Brave just for that.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#114

Post by red369 »

overflowy wrote: post #11
cedws wrote: post #9

Can it block YouTube ads? Would be a killer feature.

Nope. Only Browser that can on iOS is Brave.

Safari with the uBlock Origin Lite extension works well for me - even with "Web page Contents and Browsing History" permission set to 'Deny' for all websites.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#115

Post by Dylan16807 »

Melatonic wrote: post #112
Dylan16807 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extension did not do anything unless you put in a secret setting. It wasn't promoting anything. If this had been a hardcoded easter egg there would have been no real complaints. But showing up as a mystery extension spooked some people, and then misreporting made it spread a lot further than if all the reporting was accurate.

I just rewatched Mr Robot and that actually sounds cool. What was the secret setting ?

Once you get the extension installed, you open up about:config and add a boolean preference "extensions.pug.lookingglass" set to true.

There might have been another way to do it later but we'll never know.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#116

Post by Dylan16807 »

unsungNovelty wrote: post #111
KennyBlanken wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I hate. Absolutely hate that you can't say anything directly anymore without sugarcoating stuff in HN. Downvotes follow. I mean, the hell is HN for then? Even the most obvious stuff needs to be said like... I don't know... but it looks like Google might be slightly bad here. --- The CEO literally paid her hell a lot of money while she sold MDN to competition. While Rust to competition. While market shared shrinked fr…

Coming into a thread just because it mentions Firefox to make a generic post about Mozilla being bad gets tiring.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#118

Post by charcircuit »

doikor wrote: post #29
nkozyra wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A weird line to draw since Google still owns the general ad web space.

It doesn’t cost cost google money to show that content. (It does cost someone else who google would be giving a cut of the ad revenue) YouTube videos actually have some real world disk space, bandwidth, etc costs just to show so if google doesn’t get to show an ad they lose money instead of an opportunity to make money.

AI inference for people's queries is not free.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#120

Post by prmoustache »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #28
overflowy wrote: post #10

FYI: Doesn't block YouTube ads.

I'm regularly surprised that people are willing to block YouTube ads. I know that Google gets that advertising money too, but you're also blocking revenue that the channel owner would otherwise get. I suppose it might depend what you're watching, but most YouTubers aren't big business, they're just individuals. YouTube Premium is one of the few subscriptions I am completely happy to pay.

I guess they just chose the wrong business model if it doesn't work out for them.
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