Adblock Browser for Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#31

Post by yohui » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

Aissen wrote: post #13

Or you can use uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android and never look back.

uBlock Origin:

- Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...

- FIrefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

- GitHub: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

It works well on both mobile and desktop Firefox. Less resource-intensive than Adblock Plus. Too bad mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions yet.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#32

Post by mcescalante » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #19

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

Or you could pay for apps so they don't have ads in them.

It's not that I don't pay to support the apps that I actually use, it's that when I download the "Lite" version of your app to decide if I'll pay for it, the fact that I have a hard time clicking anywhere without getting a giant 30 second modal popup ad. That definitely makes me less likely to pay you for your software. Maybe it's just a personal thing that I don't want to give developers who would do that my money.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#33

Post by yohui » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #28

Aissen wrote: post #13

Or you can use uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android and never look back.

Too bad the main developer left, but uBlock Origin is the best ad blocker available. The speed difference is very noticable, especially on mobile devices.

gorhill is the original developer of uBlock. uBlock Origin was forked from the old uBlock after gorhill decided to take back control from chrisaljoudi.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#34

Post by mcescalante » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #15

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

> so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as separate usage. Are you saying that they sent all your data to their backend servers and stripped ads there? Or is it just that they were doing it client side, but your phone company erroneously double counted data even though it wasn't sent twice over the wireless?

That the data was being erroneously calculated/charged. I had to do some research, but Verizon (my carrier) and a bunch of other carriers actually appear to bill for "app usage data," which is still pretty unclear to me. It just magically shows up on your bill, even though it's not real used data.

If you want to read of the numerous reports of the same issue, Google "adblock plus data usage android" and click on any of the forum discussions about it.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#35

Post by Nadya » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #28

Aissen wrote: post #13

Or you can use uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android and never look back.

Too bad the main developer left, but uBlock Origin is the best ad blocker available. The speed difference is very noticable, especially on mobile devices.

Gorhill returned to it as a fork of the previous "given-away-ownership".

The whole situation is trife with drama from people expecting (rather: demanding) Gorhill to add certain features or support certain browsers.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#36

Post by izacus » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

What do you mean by "US carriers consider app data a separate usage"? Separate usage from what? How do they know? Do they have spyware on your phone? O.o

Since AdBlockPlus uses a local 127.0.0.1 HTTP proxy if you don't have root access to modify hosts.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#37

Post by jotux » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #19

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

Or you could pay for apps so they don't have ads in them.

There are many apps that have ads and no paid ad-free version.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#38

Post by mcescalante » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:40 PM UTC

Vexs wrote: post #12

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

AdAway is the only way I've found to do this with any sort of reliability, though it seems a bit funny (to me anyway) that hosts file editing is still the way to go. I have to ask though, what do you mean by "app data"? Do cell carriers really have a way to figure out that apps are sending out the data, or is it just charging more for websites and such?

Good question - I also answered for true_religion below, but it appears as though cell carriers are somehow charge for the "sum" of the data usage numbers you see in "Data Usage" on your phone - even though that number could be (was) wrong, because the adblock data is not actual traffic/data. Not sure who's ultimately at fault for this.

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#39

Post by _ZeD_ » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #19

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

Or you could pay for apps so they don't have ads in them.

except for payed apps WITH ads...

Re: Adblock Browser for Android

#40

Post by mcescalante » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #36

mcescalante wrote: post #4

I've been testing a number of Android ad blockers. Mainly because I feel like every single app under the sun is plastered with obnoxious advertisements. Tried out AdBlockPlus (not the browser) for a month - horrible experience. They actually firehose/stream all of the data your phone uses through their app to block the ads, so for that month my data usage doubled because most major US carriers consider "app data" as…

What do you mean by "US carriers consider app data a separate usage"? Separate usage from what? How do they know? Do they have spyware on your phone? O.o Since AdBlockPlus uses a local 127.0.0.1 HTTP proxy if you don't have root access to modify hosts.

I'm not positive, but there are a solid number of reports of people being pretty much being billed for the sum of the numbers that are in "Data Usage" on the Android device. This is exactly what happened to me. The number on my Verizon bill was what my "Data Usage" number said, not what the real used data was. Not sure if this is a carrier, AdBlock, or Android issue. It's definitely dishonest of Verizon, but it doesn't make me trust AdBlockPlus at all, either.

No way the carrier had spyware ON my device. Was running a Moto X dev edition with a Custom ROM & kernel at the time.

Google the phrase "adblock plus data usage android" and read some of the forum discussions / reports about the whole thing.