FYI: Doesn't block YouTube ads.
Google will stop paying them if they tried that.
That's even more reason for them to add it. The google payment has been a giant conflict of interest.
Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
201–210 of 210 posts
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#202FYI: 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.
Profit oriented YouTube videos are just as garbage as profit-oriented SEO spam listicles. I'm happy to deprive them of whatever revenue I can.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/...?
Not sure what your point is. My comparison was not made to be stretched infinitely. Next question may be "does your kernel render web pages?", but I don't see where it is going. But to give an answer: if you wanted to bake an ad-blocker in the Linux kernel that would prevent programs from showing ads in a transparent way (the ads just don't show and the programs still work and look fine), I think it would not be triv…
Look, Windows (apparently) displays ads to some users. So even for OSes, if they can get away with it, they will shove ads in our face.
Linux is a highly complex piece of software. It is OSS. And it does not shove ads in face of its users. So my point is if there is a will there is a way.
The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser? Specially now with AI coding assist, this should be even more feasable.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what your point is. My comparison was not made to be stretched infinitely. Next question may be "does your kernel render web pages?", but I don't see where it is going. But to give an answer: if you wanted to bake an ad-blocker in the Linux kernel that would prevent programs from showing ads in a transparent way (the ads just don't show and the programs still work and look fine), I think it would not be triv…
Look, Windows (apparently) displays ads to some users. So even for OSes, if they can get away with it, they will shove ads in our face. Linux is a highly complex piece of software. It is OSS. And it does not shove ads in face of its users. So my point is if there is a will there is a way. The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser? Specially now with AI coding assist, this should be eve…
> The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser?
Like Firefox or Chromium? Seems like we aren't, for some reason.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coming into a thread just because it mentions Firefox to make a generic post about Mozilla being bad gets tiring.
The thread is about a marketing piece where Mozilla plays their usual "look we're the good guys" spiel. Pointing at their dirty laundry (which they still try to hide instead of learning from their mistakes) is very much appropriate.
Narrowing it from "every post about Firefox" to "every post about Firefox doing something good" still leaves it tiring. That extension wasn't even a bad core idea, it was a bungle of implementation choices. Oh no they hid the ticket. The real criticism is bad management and while it's valid it really doesn't need to come up on every article.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#206Earlier 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.
Dude, the existence of the extension was the promotion. And Mozilla was paid for it. And the bug report is still hidden showing they have not learned their lesson. Why are you defending bad behavior?
People weren't supposed to be finding it like that. I really don't think "oh what is this new firefox experiment?" was an intended promotional path. It was an extension because that was easier to do and isolate. That's why I'm defending the intent.
And I don't think the visibility of a bug report tells us whether they learned their lesson.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, Windows (apparently) displays ads to some users. So even for OSes, if they can get away with it, they will shove ads in our face. Linux is a highly complex piece of software. It is OSS. And it does not shove ads in face of its users. So my point is if there is a will there is a way. The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser? Specially now with AI coding assist, this should be eve…
> The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser? Like Firefox or Chromium? Seems like we aren't, for some reason.
We're this conversation so Firefox is not up to task. And Chromium is connected in some way with the poster child for ad tech and surveillance capitalism.
So the point stands: OSS community has shown itself capable of tackling some of the hairiest technical challenges (Linux) and we should not let the notion that 'browsers can only be developed by corporations' stop us from creating OSS alternatives to the current offerings.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that firefox could already use the Safari "content blockers" (as it uses webkit) like Firefox Focus and uBO Lite, but I'm not seeing that option actually. Been using Orion for a while now so not sure if that changed or I'm just misremembering it.
You are correct. I’ve been using firefox focus as Safari content blocker to block ads on ios Firefox for years. Works well
I think gp means the other way: Firefox can not use Safari's content blockers to benefit from them.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#209How is this different than Firefox Focus content blocker on iOS, which came out many years ago?
This is my question as well.
This is different because Firefox Focus, a separate app, only blocks ads while using Firefox Focus. Firefox Focus can also be set as a Safari Content Blocker which allows Safari to benefit from Firefox Focus's ad blocking. (It's not the best ad blocker, I've found wBlock - https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlock - is more effective, anecdotally and via adblock.turtlecute.org)
Regular Firefox (non-Focus, the app from the article) can not benefit from Safari Content Blockers, and therefore does not benefit from Firefox Focus's ad blocking.
Re: Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The question is then why aren't we all getting behind a solid OSS browser? Like Firefox or Chromium? Seems like we aren't, for some reason.
We're this conversation so Firefox is not up to task. And Chromium is connected in some way with the poster child for ad tech and surveillance capitalism. So the point stands: OSS community has shown itself capable of tackling some of the hairiest technical challenges (Linux) and we should not let the notion that 'browsers can only be developed by corporations' stop us from creating OSS alternatives to the current of…
> OSS community has shown itself capable of tackling some of the hairiest technical challenges (Linux)
Has it though, say in the last decade? My first intuition would be that Linux was in a very different situation when it started. And it's not like there are 10 similar open source kernels that were created in the last decades and that got usable enough to be replacements for Linux...