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Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

community.blokada.org

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Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#151

Firefox for Android with ublock origin makes my mobile web browsing sane again. Highly recommended.

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

In my case, not being able to use Firefox (and therefore all the extensions including ublock) was the main reason (among others) to get rid of my iPhone 12 pro and go back to a modest Android.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#152

I co-develop a FOSS VPN-based (tcp/udp) firewall for Android. The original policy is documented here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220818100735/https://support.g... What the post misses is Google has exceptions for: - Parental control and enterprise management apps. - App usage tracking. - Device security apps (for example, anti-virus, mobile device management, firewall). - Network related tools (for example, remote…

> Ads that appear ... during the beginning of a content segment are not allowed. > Here are some examples of common violations: Unexpected ads that appear ... during the beginning of a content segment (for example, after a user has clicked on a button, and before the action intended by the button click has taken effect). These ads are unexpected for users, as users expect to ... engage in content instead. ??? isn't t…

Not entirely, I think they mean ads in games between "new game"/"next level" and the game/level starting. Free games are filled with them. Pre-roll ads in video apps like YouTube are different.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#153

I will never stop to talk about PiHole and how much changed my home browsing experience: https://pi-hole.net/ I suggest everybody to give it a spin

It also works on Roku.

I know that ads are used to pay content creator on the web but I don't see why I should see ads on the home screen of a TV I fully paid.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#154
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads In my case, I browse a limited number of web sites that offer no ads (or a minimum amount). The moment I visit a web site with tons of ads, I just close it immediately and just ignore my original intention of visiting that website (e.g., this happens sometimes in HN: people link websites of newspapers, but I don't last in them more than…

> I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads People don't browse, they app.

And they'll still see a ton of YouTube ads.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#156
post #80
post #29

I would take this post with a grain of salt. It is mostly an ad / promotion for "Blokada Cloud".

It's not an ad, it's a link from their forum. Of course they're talking about their product.

Right, it's both. It's from the "blog" section of their forum, where they are talking about their product, and promoting their cloud service. A promo is an ad by definition.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#157

For all the love I have for Blockada I'm not going to send my traffic through their cloud. I wonder if I can run something like PiHole on a VPS somewhere so that I can protect my devices both when I'm at home on WiFi and when I'm outside on 4G. I'll investigate but does anybody already experienced such a setup?

[deleted]

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#158

Firefox for Android with ublock origin makes my mobile web browsing sane again. Highly recommended.

Whenever I try to use Firefox, I always tend to go back to Chrome after a week or so. I'm visually impaired and Firefox just messes up the accessibility on certain (news) websites for me. While on Chrome it's mostly working fine. I guess it's mostly attributed to the website handling accessibility wrong, but using the web is more important to me I guess.

Install Stylus for Firefox Android, set your own legible font families, sizes and weights; that's even better than Chrome.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#160
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AdAway is main reason, why I root android devices. It block ads in all apps and browsers even on data, without VPN. Another way how to block ads on data is using OpenVPN to connect data through you home router that has ad-blocking. But it is limited by upload speed of home network connection and battery drain of your smartphone is worse with active OpenVPN.

I use OpenVPN/Wireguard to setup split-tunnel VPN, only route DNS traffic to Pi-hole at home network. Although my connection may be leaked, I thought it's faster since 5G is faster than my home network upload speed.

But your speed in device connected to OpenVPN/Wireguard is limited by upload speed of you home connection. Not by data connection speed on client device.
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