5 mo. ago • 95%

Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers)

www.spacebar.news Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome

An explanation of Manifest V3, why it matters, and what uBlock Origin is doing about it.

Technology @beehaw.org Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers)

Technology @lemmy.ml Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers)

Open Source @lemmy.ml Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers)

90 comments

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/windows/

141
- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/linux/
  
  96
  
  Eh, on Linux, it's probably in your package manager, and likely already installed. Just be careful with Ubuntu since they use snaps.
  
  53
  
  nix run nixpkgs#firefox
  
  4
  
  personally still holding out for firefox for pear phone
  
  3
- https://librewolf.net/
  
  36
- https://firefox.com
  
  19
- www.waterfox.com
  
  A really good chrome clone using Firefox. It's my go-to browser.
  
  Only issue is that it's a little slower to update than Firefox direct.
  
  7
- https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
  
  3
- https://floorp.app/ Been lovin this fork solely because the vertical tab bar integration is awesome.
  
  1
TL;DR use FF

96
(and other browsers)

... that aren't Firefox.

78
- The article talks about Firefox too.
  
  7
Since January 2018, 42% of malicious extensions use the Web Request API.

That's like making knifes illegal in general because they have been used in a certain amount of murder cases.

71
- And now, a new golden age of malvertisement will emerge...
  
  41
  
  Indeed. What a f-ing stupid argument: "We cannot trust the extensions that the user installed, therefor we give malware from advertisers free roam!"
  
  34
- If 42% of crimes used a handgun, we should ban those too.
  
  0
- You just made the argument for gun rights.
  
  Thank you and I love you. <3
  
  -25
  
  You just made the argument for gun rights.
  
  Definitely not. Gun ownership should be abolished like slavery was. A knife has good use for cutting and cooking, but a gun, especially in private hands, has absolutely no reason to exist.
  
  23
This finally made all my Chrome friends switch to the fox. about time

55
- I mean it's just a browser. Bit of fiddling with the saved password and your go to go again to never look back. If they value their users they will improve again like Firefox did in the background over years.
  
  I only hope a good search engine will appear again. I don't like the alternatives.
  
  9
  
  If you are smart, you have a password manager that you login once then everything is there and ready to login to every single account instantly.
  
  2
  
  I have been using swisscows for about a month. It's no Google... But it seems to be better than what Google is now......
  
  2
Run a pihole or similar

Your web browser is just one piece of software on your network capable of displaying ads and collecting data

48
- Network-level adblock cannot replace browser-level adblock and vice versa
  
  32
  
  Both… both is good
  
  14
- That’s reminds me, I should go update mine.
  
  18
  
  I'm only familiar with pi holes on a cursory level, but you have to update them manually? This is a bit of a turn off.
  
  6
- I thought this requires permission to a router. Can you do this say at a dorm or an apartment where internet is provided for you through a portal
  
  1
  
  You can always configure the DNS manually on a device you own to ignore the DHCP settings sent from the router and just go directly to the pihole, obviously not as good as it happening automatically, but a good workaround if that's not possible
  
  2
  
  Another user commented that you can run Unbound (the technology used by pihole) on your machine.
  
  Even easier, configure your device to use an ad block DNS resolver. Control D has free ones: https://controld.com/free-dns
  
  2
- I'm a bit clueless when it comes to that but certainly interested. Could you maybe go into more detail as to which hardware and software is needed to set that up?
  
  Thanks much in advance!
  
  1
  
  So the main software is here https://pi-hole.net/ (and they have good documentation, so I'm not going to repeat the nitty-gritty here)
  
  You obviously need something to run it on, which could be some existing computer that's always on, but (as the name might suggest) a lot of people use some form of Raspberry Pi (or similar) single-board computer.
  
  Pihole will run on basically anything, so you can get an ancient pi and it will still run fine
  
  6
casually dropping this here again:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/

38
- Use Firefox if you want but don't donate to Mozilla. Money doesn't go to Firefox development anyway.
  
  Also if they can afford to pay their CEO $3 millions a year, they don't need your donations.
  
  51
- Just adding that as I understand this, donations to the Mozilla Foundation cannot go towards Firefox, because it's [edit: Firefox is] actually part of the Mozilla Corporation. To help with funding Firefox people can consider purchasing the Corporation's other products (VPN/Relay/Monitor), or purchasing merch.
  
  See more here on the AMA on Reddit, and this thread
  
  43
  
  afaik the corporation is part of the foundation so the other way around
  
  -2
uBlock Origin for Chrome has over 34 million installations according to the Chrome Web Store

Oh wow, that is very surprising to me. I somehow expected a billion of installations. Especially when I saw the screenshots without it in the article, how can anyone browse the web without it?

17
- Adblock users are still a statistical minority of web users. Most people don’t care (as evidenced by Netflix’s ad tier gaining subscribers every quarter) or don’t know those extensions exist.
  
  23
- There are other ad block options. And there is Firefox. I use Vivaldi browser, it has a built-in ad blocker, just like many other browsers. I just wish Vivaldi would be Firefox based.
  
  10
  
  But Firefox has a installation base of 2.8% and Chrome 65%. The Firefox uBlock Origin installations are in my opinion statistically insignificant, so are Brave browser installations which are even lower.
  
  7
If you like this article, please consider following the site on Mastodon/Fedi, email, or RSS. It helps me get information like this out to a wider audience :)

10
- I didn't even click the article. Here's Why -
  
  7
- They only have 40 posts so I gave them a follow. It's when accounts have like 10k posts and an account is less than a year old that I won't follow them, I don't need that noise.
  
  1
What a garbage article. Chock full of google propaganda and fear mongering.

4
- What specifically is "google propaganda and fear mongering" in the article?
  
  20
  
  Mentions UBlock seems.to be fast and safe, but that the API used lets extensions look at everything you do amd can dramatically affect browser speed. Implying that UBlock Origin is responsible for Chrome being such a memory Hog and that they, not Google, are the ones after your data.
  
  13
  
  I don’t think that’s necessarily the case: Google knows as well as I do that a total crackdown would give governments like the European Union and United States more ammo for antitrust lawsuits.
  
  They do not care, never have, never will. Cost of operation.
  
  It would also be a motivator for more people to switch browsers, which would weaken Google’s browser monopoly.
  
  Not enough even care that would make noticable difference in market share.
  
  A lot of people were upset 23 years ago when Windows ME removed real mode DOS, too.
  
  And they all stopped using it, right? Right?
  
  The new Declarative Net Request API is still a downgrade in capability compared to the older API, but the feature gap has closed significantly.
  
  Chrome now allows extensions to include 100 rule lists, with up to 50 lists active at once. There are also additional filtering options, including an option to have case-insensitive rules, which cuts down on duplicates in filter lists. The maximum number of filter rules now varies by use case — an extension can now have up to 30,000 dynamic rules (filters downloaded by the extension) if they are deemed as “safe” (block, allow, allowAllRequests or upgradeScheme), an additional 5,000 other types of dynamic requests, and more filters included in the extension package.
  
  for context, EasyList is just one of the lists enabled by default in uBlock Origin and other ad blockers, and it has over 75,000 rules.
  
  Can you math? Feature gap almost same as before.
  
  5
- Seemed pretty level headed and surprisingly well written to me.
  
  10
- What’s Google?
  
  6
  
  A misspelling of googol, which means 10¹⁰⁰.
  
  12
I think I've made this comment before, but I really wish people would learn more about technologies like pihole. Get the ad once, get the hyperlink, add it to blacklist.

4
- I run a pihole as well, but it is a very rudimentary tool compared to browser based adblockers like uBlock origin. It can only block DNS queries, and can't for example block ads if they are served from the same domain as the main site (i.e. youtube) or block specific elements on a page or block a specific script from running.
  
  7
  
  can’t for example block ads if they are served from the same domain as the main site (i.e. youtube) or block specific elements on a page or block a specific script from running.
  
  Yeah that's true.
  
  1
- Until that ad also happens to be for a legitimate website you want to visit. I'd rather have a adblocker I can change right there in the website
  
  4
  
  That's a very rare case, and you can whitelist a domain using the pihole's web interface. It may require extra two clicks, but I had to do that maybe twice in the last year.
  
  1
- Too much effort for pretty much everything that normal AdBlock already did
  
  3
  
  But it's worth it.. pretty much can block anything and everything across the entire network - on all endpoints.
  
  1
- Permanently Deleted
  
  1
- Ironically, I wish people including yourself knew more about shit like how PiHole/RaspPi simply leverage Unbound, which is not unique to only Pi software or Pi devices. You can do this same thing on any OS that has it installed.
  
  -6
  
  Does it have a GUI or is it CLI only?
  
  1
  
  Adblock is more than just a DNS sink. I have both of those, but still use ublock origin.
  
  1
  
  Does Unbound work across the entire network on devices you can't install it to directly, the way a pihole does?
  
  1

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