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.
I can’t look up a recipe for boiled eggs without coming upon a 15 paragraph essay with ads in between each paragraph. It’s so obnoxious now. I don’t mind that people want to monetize, but it’s getting off putting when it is so obnoxious.
uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
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Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can’t look up a recipe for boiled eggs without coming upon a 15 paragraph essay with ads in between each paragraph. It’s so obnoxious now. I don’t mind that people want to monetize, but it’s getting off putting when it is so obnoxious.
On recipe blogs, you are probably not looking at the actual author monetizing. Rather, someone decided to create a copycat website, hire a minimum-wage content writer off a freelancing platform to rewrite the original text so that no copyright violation is apparent, and then they put the copycat website up with a boatload of advertising and SEO. The 15 paragraphs are an SEO trick, as Google gives higher weight to lon…
There are fundamentally 2 types of content, although the line is getting blurred : The hobbyist blog, and the publishers magazine.
The first exists for joy, the second only exists to deliver adverts.
THe blurring occurs because some of the blogs became such hot property the founders sold up.
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea not sure if anyone on the Firefox team is reading but I have not had any reason to consider Firefox until reading this thread. If Firefox made their browser the best at ad-blocking instead of performance (which also might go hand in hand) I would consider using it again.
Is Firefox worse than Chrome in anyway? Performance seems on par and it has a truly transformative app that iirc is unavailable in chrome: treetabs.
IME Firefox is much more of a battery hog on MacOS, Chrome's history page is much better, and some sites (Glassdoor and Google Meet come to mind) don't work properly in Firefox. And I don't really use the developer tools in either but I've generally heard that Chrome's are better. I still use Firefox as my daily driver but it's not flawless.
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#364Wow, 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 sho…
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sho…
If a browser bans ad-blockers and people start to fiddle with DNS, wouldn't it be easy for a browser to use it's own DNS system? If a browser turns hostile there is nothing you can do.
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, in js performance it is unfortunately behind in some benchmarks as far as I know. And some major non-standard website refuses to run under firefox, like teams unfortunately (definitely the fault of Microsoft) So I am an FF user by ideology, but sometimes do use Chromium (basically only to not have to run electron).
I am certain that I've used Teams in Firefox? I regularly use other 365 webapps as well with no problems (apart from troubles that are also present in every other browsers).
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#367Slightly off-topic, but it was Firefox's Total Cookie Protection recently that finally got to me to switch from Chrome as my daily driver. Don't get me wrong, I miss Chrome as it just felt like a_smoother_ user experience, and I fear for Firefox replaying Opera's history given that the rest of the industry has standardized on Chromium... but I love how pro-privacy Firefox is.
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
It amazes me that a consensus seems to have formed around this conclusion that Firefox is technically inferior. I have always been using it and it has always been a fantastic browser relatively free of Google's icy tendrils. The technical issues that people bring up about it are usually nonexistent for me, and while I am troubled at its direction it remains an unusually solid and reliable workhorse given the stakes i…
Well, in js performance it is unfortunately behind in some benchmarks as far as I know. And some major non-standard website refuses to run under firefox, like teams unfortunately (definitely the fault of Microsoft) So I am an FF user by ideology, but sometimes do use Chromium (basically only to not have to run electron).
1. Those test convey any useful information leading to
2. The average user is able to notice the difference in the real world
I think that things that are not js execution time for actual site functionality are much worse for the overall web experience, namely js execution time for ads/trackers and overall latency caused by bad connection quality or bandwidth. The overall experience on firefox with ublock is en par with chrome with ublock for your average mom.
Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#370If you dig into some settings and follow tech news, I have begun to question some of Mozilla's controversial settings, deals with 3rd parties and their political blog posts. I also have a problem with the CEO making $3m per year yet a continued market share decline since she came on.
Just a few of the things off the top of my head that I feel betray my trust of Firefox (all of these pertain to default Windows install):
1) Enabled by default all of your website DNS requests going to Cloudflare with a "promise" this information is not being used or sold. We all know how solid this promise has been for other large tech companies. All under the promotion that DoH protects you from your own ISP.
2) Upon install, FF installs a scheduled service that runs daily. From what I've found out, that service is sending back to Mozilla what your default browser is on YOUR PC (why is that their business). This scheduled service remains on your PC even after uninstalling Firefox and continues to run daily.
3) Enabled by default are Browser Studies and testing a clean install one is already installed and active called "F100 Snippets". Studies allow the Firefox team to install stuff right to your browser whenever they want, to gather telemetry .
4) "Recommended extensions" enabled by default. Got a nag for a recommended extension after few days of browsing. So FF must be scanning your browsing history in order for this to work?
5) this result: https://brave.com/brave-tops-browser-first-run-network-traff... . While it was from 2019 so needs to be updated, but upon first-run I was shocked at the results for FF here.
6) Firefox on Android has a known tracker embedded and enabled by default called Leanplum. From Mozilla's own website they state "Leanplum is a mobile marketing vendor"
I'd love to support and use FF solely again, but I think they need some serious shaking up, starting with a new CEO (who allows this stuff).