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uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

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Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#401

Post by lone-commenter »

throwaway189262 wrote: post #333
dbt00 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Machine learning is generally poorly suited to dealing with an intelligent adaptive adversary capable of an unpredictable universe of inputs.

Text classification might be very good at identifying ad text. There's a popular fake news dataset where models hit 85% accuracy https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-68787-8_... Ads are highly tuned for click through rates. Even if the model isn't 100% accurate, it would force advertisers to use less effective ad text to avoid filters.

> it would force advertisers to use less effective ad text to avoid filters.

That seems counterproductive to me. I mean, ads would still be annoying. And that’s why we block them.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#402

Post by pmontra »

nathcd wrote: post #258
d110af5ccf wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment: > umatrix is built into ublock origin now, just enable advanced mode in ublock. I have advanced mode enabled and don't see anything remotely resembling the uMatrix source vs type grid. There's a couple overly cryptic { allow block other } columns with rows corresponding to the source and that's it as far as I can tell. No { css image frame etc } columns in my UI.

On the uBO popup, if you click "More" on the bottom left a few times, you eventually get a uMatrix-ish grid on the left side of the popup. (Not 100% sure if that's what you're looking for.) I agree with other commenters though that I don't really understand the uBO grid and found the uMatrix grid much more immediately accessible.

The uMatrix 2d grid is a vastly superior UI than anything uBO offers for the same functionality. I keep using both because of that. uBO for blocking ads and hiding elements, especially on my phone, and uMatrix to selectively block JS and everything else.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#403

Post by dash2 »

socceroos wrote: post #399
dash2 wrote: post #397

Tools like this are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. If you block all the ads on an ad-supported website, how will it survive?

Adapt? That's what most industries that face change do. How did sites survive before the ad infestation business model?

Could you be more specific, and say what strategies an ad-supported site might use to provide the same content?

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#404

Post by pbhjpbhj »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #388
dorgo wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. Golang actually encourages developers to use their own resolver in applications instead of the system one. Google itself uses its "Public DNS" cache addreses in software and hardware it distributes. Neither decision may have been made with the intent of thwarting DNS-based evasion of ad/tracking, however, the resulting consequences may well be the same. "... there is nothing you can do." I am typing this comment…

>Yet the comment looks no different than any other comment. It works. I have freedom to choose whatever software I want to make HTTP requests. //

I mean, sure there is, some form of DRM is possible. It might be circumventable, but it would be a PITA.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#405

Post by korginator »

Long-time monthly donor to Firefox here, and have been a Mozilla / Phoenix / Firebird / Firefox user for a couple of decades now. I still think their principles are worth supporting but I'm starting to question their choice of priorities.

IMHO they seem to be losing focus on their technical strengths - making a browser their audience wants to use. Over the past year I'm seeing a lot more problems with addons, specially on Linux. Several popular addons like umatrix and ublock origin make the UX sluggish, interacting with the addons UX are hit and miss, and such operations are often unresponsive for me. I'm seeing this on Ubuntu, PopOS and Mint.

Mac and windows variants work reasonably well for me, but it's come to a point where I've reluctantly switched to Vivaldi for day to day personal use.

My thanks and appreciation for Raymond Hill's excellent work. Though the technical aspects favor Firefox in theory, the extension / addon works far better with Chromium based browsers in practice for me.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#406

Post by dash2 »

black_puppydog wrote: post #400
dash2 wrote: post #397

Tools like this are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. If you block all the ads on an ad-supported website, how will it survive?

The branch that uBlock sits on is not ad revenue. It's people's annoyance at constantly being subjected to intrusive user tracking, especially for sites that they have little choice to not use. Think social networks and banks. Sure you can refuse to use them entirely on principle, but it's not a practical approach if you want to actually have a life. On top of that, much of the tracking that does go on is actually bl…

I agree that tracking and ads are different. But uBlock does include ad-blocking functionality. The discussion here suggests that most people use it for that.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#407

Post by sellyme »

dash2 wrote: post #397

Tools like this are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. If you block all the ads on an ad-supported website, how will it survive?

> If you block all the ads on an ad-supported website, how will it survive?

If the only thing that website provides of value is a billboard, it doesn't deserve to.

I'm perfectly happy paying for high-quality ad-free services.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#409

Post by Hiopl »

boring_twenties wrote: post #252
karaterobot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been using Firefox as my daily driver for 3+ years now. Haven't encountered a single case of sites working any worse than on Chrome. Really? It happens to me all the time. I can't log into my U.S. Bank account in Firefox, I can't submit a delivery order on Doordash in Firefox, and (just this morning) I couldn't validate a credit reporting form in Firefox. Now, despite those and many other examples, I continu…

I use DoorDash with no issues on Firefox, with both uBlock Origin and NoScript running, some but not all stuff whitelisted in the latter. I also have some "unusual" settings in about:config that I mostly don't even remember, for instance disabling service workers outright.

Why disable service workers?

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#410

Post by wtallis »

mrec wrote: post #284
Nerada wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That link doesn't seem to actually describe the advanced mode panel in any detail at all. The link that does is https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...
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