uBlock Origin works best on Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#451

Post by indymike » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #327

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…

I think the future is machine learning based blocking. Ads are obvious, they have to be for users to see them. You could probably use text classification and object recognition to filter ads effectively. And you could do it from the view layer where nothing on the page can tell they've been blocked. This is also my tinfoily theory for why Chrome restricts the API's used by ad blockers. It's to prevent more effective…

>This is also my tinfoily theory for why Chrome restricts the API's used by ad blockers. It's to prevent more effective blockers from being developed.

In general, we've been engineering around bad user software install decisions for decades. Windows spyware, toolbars, spammy mobile apps, for example. The apis needed by an ad blocker are exactly the kinds of APIs that would be coveted by and used by nefarious ad products. In fact, the Firefox ecosystem took a big hit when Mozilla shut down a bunch of APIs that allowed for some pretty amazing ad blocking a few years ago. So why did they have to take those APIs out of the product?

Nefarious products that used those APIs. For example, on of the first things that happened with the original AdBlock was it was cloned and used to deliver and rewrite ads by a scumware company. All the warnings and pop-up scary messages in the world don't stop users from making bad decisions, and that at Google scale, may actually be a bigger problem. Ad Blockers may simply be collateral damage as the cost of dealing with app-drive ad fraud is petty staggering compared to the small number of ad blocker users.

That said, I'm on the side of giving users the power, even if they occasionally shoot themselves in the foot.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#452

Post by rchaud » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

diragon wrote: post #448

I have difficulties understanding why everyone's using Chrome-based browsers, when it's obvious how bad they are for privacy.

Chrome is a product of one of the biggest corporations in the world and marketed and distributed as such.

Firefox was big between 2004-2010 if I recall. Chrome came out in 2008, and needed a couple of a years to really dominate mindshare. The growth of Android helped as well.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#453

Post by sa1 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

pouta wrote: post #306

apozem wrote: post #125

I really, really wish Apple would update Safari for uBlock Origin. I’m about to publish a Safari extension (a NoScript equivalent) and the content blocking APIs are so limited. iOS is even worse than the Mac, too. On iOS AFAIK you can’t even reload the page for the user.

You should give Insight Browser on iOS a chance. It’s literally safari + ad-block and some other goodies bundled up under a nice to use interface.

Literally all browsers in iOS are safari + some other goodies. But thanks for the suggestion, it seems to have some useful extensions!

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#454

Post by yunohn » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

sellyme wrote: post #407

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.

So why do you use any websites that have ads/tracking? Surely you could avoid them and stick to your high quality paid options?

It’s annoying how self-righteous HN is about Ads.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#455

Post by wjnc » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

iforgotpassword wrote: post #446

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I have a feeling that if Chrome (for instance) went that route it would quickly become Internet Explorer'd.…

That worked back then. Ten years ago, browsers were, compared to today, ridiculously simple and thus could easily be replaced. I wouldn't be surprised if today's Chrome had more LoC than Linux in 2010. Also, the mobile platform might be a good indicator of what ordinary people are willing to put up with. Chrome doesn't support extensions there, so everybody and their uncle is browsing the web with the full ad experie…

Let's get that quantified:

Chromium LoC: 34,900,821 [1]

Linux 2010: about 12 million [2]

It appears that Chromium has more LoC than Linux. (With LoC being a bad measure, Linux being GNU/Linux, blah). Browsing is hard.

[1] via Google since OpenHub appears down [2] https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lines_of_Code_Linu...

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#456

Post by andrepd » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #443

curiousmindz wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, this type of perspective is only gained in hindsight. For example, I could see a future, say in 10 years, where we have a vastly better way to browse the web and then we will look back on today and think that Chrome(ium) was coasting on its past success and only providing minor new features (while ensuring that ads continue to be as profitable as possible).

I definitely remember takes in the genre of "who cares if IE is never updated. What else could you possibly do on the web?" back when websites were mostly static, JavaScript was still a toy, and all the people who could imagine better were trying to convince everyone to switch to [Phoenix, Firebird, Firefox]. Microsoft had the inspiration for XMLHttpRequest right there and couldn't see past its Windows-centric strate…

> No AJAX. No web 2.0. No SPAs. It would be a different world.

Is it better this way? I'm not so sure.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#457

Post by catlifeonmars » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #315

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #285

Earlier 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…

It's ironic that the browser that presents the biggest red flag for removing user control of DNS is Firefox, with their push for DNS over HTTPS. It's true that you can turn it off (for now), but until Firefox baked DoH in, DNS was a sacrosanct user control switch mostly unimpeachable by corporate meddling.

DNS also leaks your domain lookups to anyone and everyone. If you make it opt in, then opting in becomes incriminating in some contexts. IDK, this sounds very much like a problem specific to people who don’t need to worry about the state controlling their internet access.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#458

Post by devit » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #285

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 sho…

As long as there remain viable open-source browsers there will be forks allowing ad-blocking.

The only danger is Google switching Chrome to closed source and adding lots of complex extensions that get widely adopted faster than they can be reverse engineered, but this seems an unlikely scenario.

The other danger would be general purpose computers or smartphones no longer available, but that also seems unlikely.

The final and most plausible danger is different and it is advertisers switching to ads that cannot be reliably distinguished from the rest of the page (currently it seems they don't do it because that removes any direct access to analytics by the advertiser and thus requires them to trust websites and they don't trust them).

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#459

Post by ilovepitchdecks » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #445

Hallucinaut wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't suggest a boycott. Each individual consumer decision makes a difference in aggregate. Every failed business in history is a result of consumer decisions away from what they have to offer, so I don't particularly understand that rationale.

People are “easy” to manipulate, especially when your control reaches basically every aspect of their life. Hiding/downplaying few articles here, shoving another into my face there with an opaque algorithm will achieve basically anything over a long time. Also, you underestimate the effect of laziness. A company really has to do some atrocious thing to result in people leaving its services. Like, what would make the…

I agree that monopolies have to be broken up. I'd start with the government.

Re: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox

#460

Post by ilovepitchdecks » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #444

pibechorro wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broken up by politicians? Ya, hard no. Just stop using it! Stop forcing your choices on people. No one has to use chrome, google search, gmail, etc. There are alternatives to all your problems, open source ones too.

The government is chosen by the people and enforced by their choice to make decisions. A company without control is cancer. Just look at Nestle, Facebook and Google and plenty of others abusing their size and that people are NOT rational entities en masse. A government should (and they are the only thing that can) step up against these abuses.

Products are chosen by 'the people' (consumers) too.