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uBlock Origin 1.50.0

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Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#161

Post by newscracker »

EscapeFromNY wrote: post #34

I understand why gorhill doesn't ask for donations, but I still wish there was some sneaky way I could send him some money anyway.

He's written in detail (with many revisions) about why he doesn't accept donations...since 2014, actually (and versioned those on GitHub too).

The latest version from April 2022 [1] says:

> I do not want the administrative workload that comes with donations. I do not want the project to become in need of funding in any way: no dedicated home page + no forum = no cost = no need for financial support. I want to be free to move on to something else if ever I get tired of working on these projects (no donations = no expectations).

> Have a thought for the maintainers of the various lists. These lists are everything. I can not emphasize this enough.

The oldest version from July 2014 [2] says:

> A couple of reasons, each on its own is enough for me to not want donations.

> First reason is a mix of practicality and because of who I am.

> If I were to accept donations, because of who I am, I would be unable to not disclose exactly what is going on with these donations: revenues, withdrawals (for what purpose), etc. Because these would be funds donated with the expectations to help, I would want to disclose everything related to these donations, so people who have given know how their donations are used for this project. That's just who I am, I wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Thing is, I don't want to deal with all this administrative work I would bring to myself if I were to accept donations. I just want to code.

> Second reason, to ensure the main purpose of these projects is protected.

> If I were to accept donations, then in my opinion, the projects (µBlock, HTTP Switchboard) would start a slow descent toward becoming dependent on outside funding, a slow descent toward a mean to earn funds, and this drift eventually leads to the projects' main purpose becoming vulnerable to other agendas. In my opinion. There are excellent open source projects out there which accept donations and are not compromised. Some others are in my opinion. So, as it is, I don't want these projects to have a dedicated home page (requires funding), a forum (requires funding), or whatever requires funding. No financial footprint means no way the main purpose can be preempted (µBlock, HTTP Switchboard are GPLv3). It bothers me Firefox decided to go along with HTML5 DRM.

[1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-...

[2]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-...

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#162

Post by dingledork69 »

intelthrow6 wrote: post #125
evrimoztamur wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you would know about these things if you ever deployed an application (and you cannot convince me otherwise.)

DNS records are usually set once and forget. You read the documentation once when you’re doing it, and then you basically never have to touch it again. I had to look up the difference between a CNAME and an A record, even though I’ve set them numerous times before. Not useful in day-to-day. DNS servers: going to assume you query a DNS server that has a map of domain names to IP addresses, with basic routing via DNS r…

> Literally, every cloud provider will give you an endpoint address that does not require port-mapping

Try running a real server. But even in the cloud you'll quickly run into it as soon as your stack becomes even mildly complex.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#163

Post by infofarmer »

themoonisachees wrote: post #145
intelthrow6 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS records are usually set once and forget. You read the documentation once when you’re doing it, and then you basically never have to touch it again. I had to look up the difference between a CNAME and an A record, even though I’ve set them numerous times before. Not useful in day-to-day. DNS servers: going to assume you query a DNS server that has a map of domain names to IP addresses, with basic routing via DNS r…

I'd like to take the opportunity to throw some shade at network admins because out of all companies I worked at, they have consistently been the slowest to respond when their stack is usually the most reactive to changes.

Almost like those annoying neurosurgeons taking 18 hours to perform a brain surgery that could've been 30 minutes.

Network configuration changes are the reason for 90%+ of domain-wide multi-hour outages.

You can remote-reset everything but if the network breaks, you have to physically get there. (OOB/LOM notwithstanding)

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#164

Post by everdrive »

scohesc wrote: post #32

My terminology may be wrong, but I would assume these ad-blockers are great until streaming platforms catch up and embed ads directly into the video stream. Twitch is getting close to that. They directly inject video ads into streams at random times causing you to miss parts of streams. uBlock Origin seemed to have a way around that with some extra setup but it's only a matter of time before it's completely transpare…

> Part of me wonders why they haven't done so yet

I’ve wondered if they know that they’ll lose numbers of users, which is an important metric for selling space to advertisers.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#165

Post by newscracker »

Kiro wrote: post #110
EscapeFromNY wrote: post #34

I understand why gorhill doesn't ask for donations, but I still wish there was some sneaky way I could send him some money anyway.

What's the rationale for not accepting donations?

I've copy pasted some of his rationale for not accepting donations (with links to the originals), in my comment on this thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36230210

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#166

Post by dingledork69 »

rtsil wrote: post #96
RankingMember wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of a vicious cycle too- because the number of impressions goes down from all the adblocking, the users not running adblock get even more ads to the point of absurdity (see: local news sites) as tech companies try to make up the difference.

I have this distinct impression whenever I watch Youtube from my TV's app and Youtube serves me 6 different unskippable ads on a 10-minute video.

It used to be that you wouldn't get youtube ads on a chromecast. That changed and I never use the thing anymore since it can't block ads. A shame.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#167

Post by evo_9 »

danielwmayer wrote: post #28

Ublock is without a doubt the most valuabe chrome extension. Most people underutilize it as a way of filtering “legitimate portions” of websites as well. For example, I used it to filer out all recommended content from youtube, as well as comments. My youtube is merely a search bar and the video I wanted to watch, nothing more.

I've been using uBlock for a long time but I really don't think I've scratched its surface; do you (or anyone) have a good write-up on advanced uses of UBlock? That would be super helpful!

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#168

Post by paulryanrogers »

the_af wrote: post #99
RankingMember wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of a vicious cycle too- because the number of impressions goes down from all the adblocking, the users not running adblock get even more ads to the point of absurdity (see: local news sites) as tech companies try to make up the difference.

Browsing the web without an adblocker is... illuminating. A vision into a corporate hellscape of garbage constantly screaming for your attention. I'm sure they don't allow adblockers in Hell.

IME you learn which sites and services can balance ads vs user needs. So it's only hell if insist on consuming from those who don't care enough about you.

Of course if ad blocking gets too be too mainstream all that will be left are 'native' ads and directly paid content.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#169

Post by newscracker »

RussianCow wrote: post #56
coldpie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your mobile needs, uBlock Origin also works great in Firefox for Android!

This is, honestly, one of the things that brought me back to Android. Content blockers on mobile Safari just didn't work as well for me.

There are several ad blockers or content blockers (free and paid) on iOS with varying experiences (and sometimes annoyances due to the platform limit on the number of rules a blocker can include). Firefox Focus on iOS comes a built-in blocker. Additionally, using something like NextDNS – which allows adding the same filter lists as uBlock Origin – also helps. Of course, these will not allow easy element picking and blocking.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.50.0

#170

Post by jonathantf2 »

jacurtis wrote: post #88
dlisboa wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m often amazed at how people I know, full internet “power users”, don’t use it and complain about ads. I have never seen an ad in years, not on YouTube or wherever. How do people who build web stuff daily not know about adblocks? It’s so weird to me.

> how do people who build web stuff daily not know.. I'll stop it right there. You'd be surprised how many people who build web stuff daily know surprisingly little about how the web actually works or any details aside from that. A surprisingly massive portion of people in tech have learned just enough through bootcamps and youtube videos to accomplish just enough for the specific job they are doing without realizing…

I work for an IT provider - I don't think I've spoken to a single web developer who actually understands DNS and doesn't need their hand holding to get us the correct records to update. Most of them just ask us/the client to change the NS to wordpress.com or w/e, breaking their e-mail and a load of other stuff
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