If you haven't been using Firefox, what are you even doing with your life?
Cross platform bookmark support is my favourite feature.
I also use Firefox on my mobile device. I have to admit: I'm not a huge fan of the interface. Super clunky.
Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
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Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their approach yielded arguably the least exploitable general purpose computing devices that people ever actually wanted, without making people feel they were crippled, in a market where there are thousands of alternatives. It's been wildly successful and, like nearly everyone, I'm fine it.
:( where’s the hacker ethos here? I suppose you have a nice Linux machine or something you customize as you see fit, and you can make calls and listen to podcasts on your phone and that’s good enough for on the go…? I want grandma to have a locked-down iPhone but I want to be able to go through a process to be able to own my own iPhone. Doesn’t feel fine to have something crippled unless maybe it’s rented or somethin…
If and when I want a device I can tinker endlessly with, that’s very available to me already.
I have some of them.
What I don’t have is a desire to actively deny consumers a “just works” option that is extremely safe and reliable. No caveats. That would be of minor benefit to me and a detriment to many millions of people in general.
The market spoke, and a huge number of people want those. That’s fine and should remain their choice to make.
The real tragedy of outlawing Apples approach is that the only reason people want this ability is because Apple created this whole package that everyone wants.
tldr; It’s an extraordinarily selfish thing to insist on at everyone else’s expense. I’m ok doing without the one thing.
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#113Blocking ads wholesale is a terrible idea and unnecessary. What needs to be blocked is ads that execute client-side javascript (consuming your memory and cpu), ads that consume too much network bandwidth and so on. Ads are necessary so that content producers can generate income, without it they won't produce quality content. When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their…
If I allocated proportionally pieces of $5 to my favorite content producers a month they would get orders of magnitude more than what they get from me watching ads.
I hate ads, I hate the experience of having something in between me and what I want to do, having random images sent through my eyeballs, etc. So no, not everyone wins with advertising.
Google et al make more money (or at least think they do) through advertising and eschew micropayments for this reason, but that doesn't make micropayments unprofitable. And I don't want things for free if it means watching ads.
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI uBlock Origin Lite on iOS is inferior to AdGuard and (I think) Wipr as it's just a WebExtension, so it'll only block ads within Safari itself. AdGuard and Wipr use both the Web Extension and Content Blocker APIs, so they'll block ads in all web views system wide on top of within Safari itself. However as far as trustworthiness goes, uBlock is (imo) #1.
wBlock by an MIT student is open source and seems (just!) about as trustworthy as uBlock, though of course without the track record. Light & fast, especially to update. “wBlock runs entirely within Safari's content blocking API. There's no data collection, no tracking, and no system-level extensions that can monitor your browsing.“ https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wblock/id6746388723 / GH: https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlo…
Just a comment on the narrative:
> wBlock by an MIT student is open source
It's funny to me that some find that narrative appealing.
Here's another narrative: Many of those MIT students go on to be SV founders and employees who build, operate, and make millions or billions from the mass surveillance and ad industry. And I'm sure some participated in FOSS in college - what better way to build your resume for the surveillance/ad industry?
(I'm not commenting on the wBlock developer; I think all such narratives are deceiving and should be ignored.)
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#115Blocking ads wholesale is a terrible idea and unnecessary. What needs to be blocked is ads that execute client-side javascript (consuming your memory and cpu), ads that consume too much network bandwidth and so on. Ads are necessary so that content producers can generate income, without it they won't produce quality content. When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their…
There are multiple standarss for better advertisements[1][2] and AdBlock Plus introduced "acceptable ads" whitelisting if your ad meets one of the criteria.[3] Consumers do not want this and this "acceptable ads" policy is what caused the shift from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin.
I'd rather the government sponsor a roundtable between advertisers/browser manufacturers to discuss coming up with a legally protected "acceptable ads" programme to be enforced by default without causing antitrust problems.
[1] https://www.betterads.org/standards/
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#116In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
Mostly so, it's got all the limitations of Manifest V3 which prevents it from doing a good bit of blocking, https://ublockorigin.com/#manifest-v3-section In particular: * Cannot use all filter lists simultaneously (rule limits apply) * No cosmetic filtering in the default mode * No scriptlet injection by default * Limited dynamic filtering capabilities * Requires broader host permissions upfront But it's definitely s…
What I like about uBO Lite in Safari is that I can use it without allowing it access to any of my data (it works in a purely declarative mode if you want). Even if it’s unlikely that uBO would be sold to a sketchy company, at least this provides protection against any supply chain attacks.
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#117Technically, Firefox Focus (a separate browser for iOS) includes an adblocker feature that can be applied system wide via iOS's content blockers subsystem. This was released in the late 2010s. Firefox including it is likely just reducing the steps required.
Love Firefox. But I always thought it was terribly misguided product direction of them to ever release this as a separate iOS app.
Total speculation, but I wonder if Apple wouldn't approve a single app with all of those features.
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#118> Firefox does not block: > Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page So block ads unless it impacts their revenue sources.
This feels like a place where the "yet you also participate in society" comic fits.
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#119WIPR 2 is working great on Safari on iOS and MacOS. Worth the money
https://apps.apple.com/si/app/wipr-2/id1662217862
Re: Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker
#120But advertising is the source of funding that many content creators rely on to make a living... Of course I don’t want Meta and Google profiting from mind-manipulating ads, but where is better business model? Crypto micropayments?
With AI I am reconsidering my stance on micropayments. I recently loaded up a few dollars on Deepseek to try it out, and the value I got out of it far surpassed my balance lost (tens of cents). If this is a sustainable business model for Deepseek (I'm not sure yet), then this shifts the economics: in this scenario I feel totally fine paying pocket change for something valuable. We already know google's searches cost…
This is the kind of “better internet” I want. Compared with ads, I’d much rather have a 0.05 dollar paywall.
But for this to work, the technology has to be built on crypto micropayments. The total cost and friction of traditional payment systems, including online payment services like PayPal, would make this impossible. I think this is also one of the design goals behind Web3 and Project Xanadu.