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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

#161

Post by regginwohmot »

tomhow wrote: post #145
mvdtnz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't weaken his position at all. Just because it hurts your delicate sensibilities.

Appending "Thanks, dicks" weakens the comment because it demonstrates they have nothing to say other than vulgarity, which means they have nothing substantive to say at all. We never object to profanity by itself on HN. We do object to abusive swipes and name-calling, because it pulls discussion away from HN's primary purpose, which is curious conversation, and drags it towards the gutter. While I have you: could you…

[dead]

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#162

Post by shakow »

al_borland wrote: post #88
metalliqaz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

has any browser ever made that work? Opera has to be the most popular by a mile and even they couldn't keep that business model going

Orion (by Kagi) is still new, but seems to be trying.

Orion is webkit-based though, not a whole independent browser like FFox.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#163

Post by teekert »

makeitdouble wrote: post #101
yubblegum wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the problem? I understand a browser is a complex program but is the claim it is impossible to build a browser without continual dependence on advertising toxic dollars?

> a browser is a complex program A browser in the class of Firefox or Chrome is for all intents and purposes a full OS constantly exposed to the world. I understand open source OS development to be sustainable thanks to the the effort put into the server farms. That doesn't work for client side software, with the additional hurdle of needing to be better than the ad funded browser.

My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads?

Maybe companies should see browsers more as a the Linux kernel, a precompetitive commodity layer on top of which we deliver/extract value to/from users.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#164

Post by Brian_K_White »

thesuitonym wrote: post #72
qwerpy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also they say they will continue to show Firefox’s sponsored links and ads. So, they’ll continue to show first party ads and google’s ads? And likely they won’t be able to keep up with meta’s anti ad blocking. That’s most ads on the internet. No thanks, I’ll stick to ublock origin lite on safari.

There's no reason to block Firefox's sponsored links because you can just turn those off if you don't want to see them.

There's no reason to hope there is a way to tell a particular source of ads to turn itself off when you can just use a non-gimped ad block on a non-gimped platform and block all ads without caring if any of them are cooperative or adversarial.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#165

Post by tgv »

illiac786 wrote: post #135
tgv wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if everyone gave $10, that would get them at least $50.

LOL (and I love ff)

Me too, but we are few. Google paid $585M in 2024. I don't think Mozilla can get 58 million users to pay $10 each. That might even exceed the FF user base. Even if they could, they would use it as extra money, not to get rid of Google.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#166

Post by palata »

teekert wrote: post #163
makeitdouble wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a browser is a complex program A browser in the class of Firefox or Chrome is for all intents and purposes a full OS constantly exposed to the world. I understand open source OS development to be sustainable thanks to the the effort put into the server farms. That doesn't work for client side software, with the additional hurdle of needing to be better than the ad funded browser.

My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads? Maybe companies should see browsers more as a the Linux kernel, a precompetitive commodity layer on top of which we deliver/extract value to/from users.

> My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads?

And Firefox is not riddled with ads. The websites it loads are. If you run a program that shows ads on your Linux distro, the Linux kernel won't block them, will it?

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#167

Post by yubblegum »

palata wrote: post #166
teekert wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads? Maybe companies should see browsers more as a the Linux kernel, a precompetitive commodity layer on top of which we deliver/extract value to/from users.

> My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads? And Firefox is not riddled with ads. The websites it loads are. If you run a program that shows ads on your Linux distro, the Linux kernel won't block them, will it?

Does your hypothetical kernel make it easy or difficult for you to install add-ons that block ads? Does the organization that build it have a conflict of interest regarding advertisting/surveillance interests such as Google/Meta/...?

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#168

Post by robotbikes »

WD-42 wrote: post #3

It's been days (weeks?) and I'm still waiting for the option to appear for me. These "experiments" are super annoying when you are on what I'm assuming is the long tail of a rollout but the marketing/blog posts speak of the feature like it's already launched. If there's someone at Mozilla reading this: turn it on already! I want to get off Orion, it's so buggy, but the internet is unusable without an ad blocker.

This is frustrating, I think this a great development as someone who has been a Firefox user from the beginning but just switched to iOS. I see this new feature advertised and then it’s just not there, I update, still gone. The FAQ should at least be updated to say, this feature is only available at random due to a progressive experimental roll out and they should mention what version it requires etc. At least be up front when promoting something. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and then check periodically for it to show up.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#169

Post by worldsavior »

Anoian wrote: post #148
c0_0p_ wrote: post #121

As others have mentioned it doesn't stop YouTube ads or search ads. Most likely because Mozilla is still quite dependent on Google for it's income. Which is why I think we need to be less critical everytime Mozilla tries to make money some other way. They need to become more self sufficient in order to improve Firefox.

I feel like they only exist so that google can claim that competition exists.

That's correct. Soon there will be Ladybird, hopefully in a few years a very good competitor to Chrome/Firefox.

The thing I'm worried about with Ladybird is it's core logic is being coded by AI. I don't mind AI in other regions of code but I think core logic should be carefully written. They're also not very organized. Deciding to rewrite the whole codebase from CPP to Swift, then the decision changes to Rust shows uncareful decision making.

Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

#170

Post by tonyhart7 »

inigyou wrote: post #155
cryptonym wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Alphabet not responsible this? They push ads for scams at the top and earn money from it. That should be 100% on them to reimburse, then go after the scammers.

They can only be held responsible if a scam victim sues them.

"They can only be held responsible if a scam victim sues them."

so basically less than 1 percent chance

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