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uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

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Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#281

Post by whatshisface »

sfink wrote: post #169
whatshisface wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox recently rolled out an update that broke up the big GC passes into small GC passes. That contributed to a huge improvement in responsiveness.

That sounds great. But as someone who works on the Firefox GC team, I gotta say: what? Or more specifically, I'm wondering what change you could be referring to. We've had incremental GC for many years now, which does exactly what you describe. It's true that we keep splitting up more of the uninterruptible pieces into smaller chunks, but I don't recall any major change there recently. (I'm not very good at marketing…

It might not have been that recent. Incremental GC was not new in the patch, what changed was the tuning. It happened some time in the last six months and was a huge improvement for the use case of realtime rendering. At the time I was comparing performance between release and nightly, and it was night and day.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#282

Post by kaba0 »

sfink wrote: post #169
whatshisface wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox recently rolled out an update that broke up the big GC passes into small GC passes. That contributed to a huge improvement in responsiveness.

That sounds great. But as someone who works on the Firefox GC team, I gotta say: what? Or more specifically, I'm wondering what change you could be referring to. We've had incremental GC for many years now, which does exactly what you describe. It's true that we keep splitting up more of the uninterruptible pieces into smaller chunks, but I don't recall any major change there recently. (I'm not very good at marketing…

May I ask you about the “big picture” of how Firefox’s GC work? How does it compare to something like OpenJDK’s ZGC?

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#283

Post by wyuyva »

Nerada wrote: post #246
OJFord wrote: post #191

Such a shame uMatrix was discontinued. uBlock Origin comes close, and surpasses in some ways (I used both for that reason) but lacks separate control of cookies, images, scripts, etc. So you can't accept a particular third party's images without also accepting its scripts, cookies, etc. I mention it mainly in the hope that we can popularise its maintained fork 'nuTensor'. After trying uBlock (as in attempting to also…

I'm in the same boat. My main objection to uBO is the cryptic UI. I have no idea what the two columns to the right of a domain are as there's no column headings, or the two nested buttons in each column, one of which is grey (where I'd assume there'd be green to counter the red?), or the "+"/"++" that sometimes appear over said buttons... Or the green bars that creep in from the far left over the domain names, at sta…

All your questions can be answered by reading over the documentation in the uBo github wiki.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#284

Post by mrec »

Nerada wrote: post #246
OJFord wrote: post #191

Such a shame uMatrix was discontinued. uBlock Origin comes close, and surpasses in some ways (I used both for that reason) but lacks separate control of cookies, images, scripts, etc. So you can't accept a particular third party's images without also accepting its scripts, cookies, etc. I mention it mainly in the hope that we can popularise its maintained fork 'nuTensor'. After trying uBlock (as in attempting to also…

I'm in the same boat. My main objection to uBO is the cryptic UI. I have no idea what the two columns to the right of a domain are as there's no column headings, or the two nested buttons in each column, one of which is grey (where I'd assume there'd be green to counter the red?), or the "+"/"++" that sometimes appear over said buttons... Or the green bars that creep in from the far left over the domain names, at sta…

That panel is described in some detail here [1], though even after reading it the click behaviour is very unintuitive. It's explicitly an advanced-user thing, though, and only shown if you click "More" on the basic popup.

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Quick-guide:-popup-us...

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#285

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

xoa wrote: post #70

Wow, what an awesome dive into some of the technical aspects behind one of my favorite tools for using the web. And I do think of it that way these days, it's fairly stunning on some sites to switch off all the block and see how they become genuinely unbrowsable. I remember seeing Gorhill discuss a few times over the years some of the reqs for uBO during certain times (like why it could no longer work with Safari fol…

Funny, I see the possible future differently. I am inclined to predict that the option to use ad blockers may come to an end because browsers and other software financed with online ad-derived revenue have full control over what extensions users are allowed to run. They have full control over that system for extending the functionality of their software.

Whereas the system for supplying software with IP addresses should continue to remain controllable by the user.^1 The online ad ecosystem has never had full control over that system.

1. If they so choose to exercise said control. As cited, probably most users are not currently exercising that control. This allows online ad tech to operate with relative ease, at relatively lower cost.

As much as anyone loves their ad blocker (to be clear, I think they are great), we really cannot dismiss the role of DNS in ad blocking. After all, it is DNS that is being used to bypass uBO on browsers other than Firefox. The only reason uBO can achieve a 70% success rate^2 blocking CNAME-cloaked ad/tracking on Firefox is because Firefox has a "DNS API". As such, uBO can check the results of DNS lookups for ad/tracking server hostnames/IPs.^3

Of course, a user who blocks ads/tracking outside the browser by controlling her own DNS lookups also has access to those results. No API needed. (Although I think it's a great project, I personally do not use Pi-Hole. I was using DIY DNS (without dnsmasq) long before Pi-Hole.)

One solution I can see to a future where ad blocking extensions are banned is a user-controlled proxy that performs similar operations, but outside the browser.

(I make most HTTP requests for recreational web use outside the browser, through a proxy I control. For recreational web use, I do not use a major browser to make HTTP requests to the proxy. The programs that I use have no financial dependence on online advertising/tracking/data collection like the major browsers and many mobile apps do.)

2. According to the paper cited on Github page that comprises the OP.

3. According to some uBO users sometimes the uBO-triggered lookups are undesired, e.g., when using proxies/VPNs.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#286

Post by MAGZine »

nwmcsween wrote: post #137

Just reinstalled Firefox due to this info

I keep chrome installed as a backup because some sites are just plain broken. But 99.9% of my browsing works fine, and so I've made FF my default browser on both personal and work machines, and have not looked back.

Chrome is just too hostile to its users. Between incognito mode tracking users around the web, this extension/API hoo-hah, among other things, I'm just not excited about it as a browser anymore.

You did a lot for us, Chrome, but it's time to loosen your grip on the browser market.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#287

Post by mcyukon »

xaos____ wrote: post #84
isatty wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an iPhone? I was a noscript user from 10+ years ago (I guess?) and I’ve been using uBo for as long as I can remember but isn’t Firefox on iPhone just a wrapper? Is it battery efficient? As a workaround I use a Pi-Hole (except, not on a pi).

Install Firefox focus, go to Safari settings, add Firefox focus as Content Blocker and Firefox ( Not Focus, the real one) will show no ads anymore. Works, because Firefox on iOS is mandated to use the Safari engine

Nice, never thought to try that. Makes sense though. Thanks!

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#288

Post by cmeacham98 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #12
grenoire wrote: post #3

Honestly, I can't really browse on my phone anymore. I'm... spoiled by FF + uBlock and I can't tolerate all the distractions. Will we ever get enough traction on either blocking mechanisms or stop shoving ads everywhere? Will the general public experience the pleasures of an ad-less internet? P.S. I'm on an iPhone, blockers failed me so far. Thanks for the suggestions fellas.

Well, I use FF+uBlock on my phone :) It works super well.

They said they're on iOS, where you can only use WebKit, and therefore extensions like uBO are not possible.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#290

Post by dahfizz »

10000truths wrote: post #56
bassdropvroom wrote: post #52

> The Firefox version of uBO makes use of WebAssembly code for core filtering code paths. This is not the case with Chromium-based browsers because this would require an extra permission in the extension manifest which could cause friction when publishing the extension in the Chrome Web Store. Anyone know what this extra permission is and why requesting this extra permission would cause friction?

My guess is that it’s much harder to review WASM bytecode to make sure it doesn’t do anything sketchy.

Surely the ublock devs are not writing WASM directly? It would be possible to have the source code available for audit with some way of proving it generates the assembly that is being shipped.
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