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To see how Google feels about ad blockers, all you need to do is look at Chrome on Android & the fact that it does not allow extensions at all. I have personal

To see how Google feels about ad blockers, all you need to do is look at Chrome on Android & the fact that it does not allow extensions at all. I have personally used Firefox on Android for years because of this. I predict Firefox will see a large uptake in market share if ad and content blockers become ineffective on desktop Chrome. I've finally switched to Firefox on the desktop now that U2F support is here, and it looks like it was just in time.

devoply 7y ago
> The deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API is to gain back this control, and to further now instrument and report how web pages are filtered since now the exact filters which are applied to web page is information which will be collectable by Google Chrome. Which means in the medium run they are looking to deal with ad-blockers altogether because if you can instrument what rules are applies to pages by the most popular blockers you know exactly how to get around those rules. Basically this is a way to dump all that data into Google's pockets so it can slowly but surely get around all of that.
jmkni 7y ago
One of the big downsides of using iOS over Android is the lack of an adblocker. Overall I still prefer it (iOS), but definitely a pet peeve of mine. Edit: nevermind, I'm an idiot!
- haraball 7y ago
  I'm happy with 1Blocker [1] for blocking ads on iOS. [1]: https://1blocker.com/ https://1blocker.com/
  - jmkni 7y ago
    Ah thanks, will check it out!
- dkoston 7y ago
  Curious about this. Are you expecting something different than going to the safari settings and enabling a third party content blocker? What are you looking for that isn’t offered by that feature?
- auiya 7y ago
  This is simply untrue. There are a myriad of adblockers available for iOS (crystal, Wipr, Adblock, Adguard, Purify, 1Blocker X, etc), as well as VPN applications which provide content blocking.
  - fwn 7y ago
    Not an iOS user, so I can't test it: does this block the usual suspects like search, Facebook, Reddit or Instagram ads? I tried to block those for a while now on Android and wasn't able to find any other solution than using Firefox with ubo. I don't need to block in-app ads; I just bought my way out of those.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      iOS content blockers only function in Safari and certain views.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  There are Safari ad blockers. A lot of them. There are also some local vpn ad blockers. Searching in App Store should bring up a lot of options.
- dan1234 7y ago
  The Firefox Focus content blocker blocks pretty much every advert for me, works in mobile safari and has done for years. Blocking ads in apps is certainly trickier though.
sametmax 7y ago
Same for youtube. The mobile youtube site experience is subpart compared to the app, but the app is bombarding you with ads you can't block.
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  NewPipe fixes it. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
  - japanoise 7y ago
    Second a vote for newpipe and add that it supports downloads, play in background, etc.
    - ce4 7y ago
      Newpipe often breaks and fdroid is slow to update... there's also the Background video playback fix add-on for FF, works really well. https://addons.mozilla.org/de/android/addon/video-background-play-fix/ https://addons.mozilla.org/de/android/addon/video-background...
      - midnightGhost 7y ago
        YouTube Vanced is good. https://vanced.app/ https://vanced.app/
  - sametmax 7y ago
    Thank you.
  - sinancan2 7y ago
    I worry that this could cause one's Google account to be closed.
- auiya 7y ago
  I pay for YouTube music, which also removes ads anywhere you are using YouTube with your logged in account. I was testing YT Music as a replacement for Spotify (since push notifications are broken and they apparently have no intention to fix). The YouTube experience of paid vs. non-paid is night and day, I highly recommend it.
scblzn 7y ago
Kiwi Browser on Android (Chromium based) supports all extensions and has an intelligent dark mode : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowser.browser&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...
enitihas 7y ago
Can you tell us which browser apart from mobile firefox allows extensions? Safari no, Edge no. I use firefox mobile for extensions, but browser vendors might want to make different tradeoffs since mobile has different requirements, and it is used by far too many people for far too much personal tasks and allowing access to browser data may not be as desirable as on Desktop. 99% of mobile users don't have the technical skills required to understand what data extensions will have access to. Off course, Apple doesn't even allow other browsers on iOS, so firefox iOS can't support extensions even if it wanted to. If you look at a single policy and decide that you know all you need to know, then maybe you should first ask for apple to change.
- feep 7y ago
  Yandex. Kiwi. (both Android) I think there are more. But I don't remember which ones.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    But all of them are Chromium based, so are either going to be crippled by the Google proposal in the article, or they're going to diverge more significantly.
    - feep 7y ago
      True, both points. But if they added extensions (which mobile Chromium doesn't support at all), they're not shy about divergence. Not meant as a comment on the proposal or FF vs Chromium. This (v3) proposal, and the slick rewrite of Mozilla's stuff probably means I will be off of Chromium for mobile and desktop some time in the hazy future.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  Safari allows ad blocking extensions on mobile
  - enitihas 7y ago
    Ad blocking, not any way to run "browser extensions". The parent is saying "all you need to do is look at Chrome on Android & the fact that it does not allow extensions at all." iOS doesn't allow any browser vendor to let run extensions too, let alone run them in Safari.
burtonator 7y ago
> I predict Firefox will see a large uptake in market share if ad and content blockers become ineffective on desktop Chrome. I predict you're right but not enough for it to make a difference. The one thing that I've come to realize is that we're losing. The web is now closed. Owned by Facebook and Twitter for the most part. Facebook screws you over on privacy but most people don't care. Sure... you and I do, however, the masses don't care about defecting as long as they save $0.99.
- this_user 7y ago
  > Owned by Facebook and Twitter for the most part Add Apple and their walled garden to that list. When Intel first attempted to introduce "Trusted Computing" in the early 2000s, there was a huge outcry. Few years later Apple comes along with something that is much more restrictive, and now people are happy to accept that you can only do with your device whatever the manufacturer allows you to do.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Apple is the surviving of the 8 and 16 bit home computer cultures of vertical integration. The PC only escaped that model due to Compaq's reverse engineering trick and IBM's failure to take it back. Something that most OEMs are quite found of having back as per current Android and laptop models.
- hedora 7y ago
  This is simply not true. People do care about online privacy, and they care more than they used to. I care about my privacy, but the steps I can take to protect it are inadequate. I am in the vast majority (97%) according to this survey: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/labs-survey-finds-privacy-concerns-distrust-of-social-media-rampant-with-all-age-groups/ https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/labs-su... Here are some numbers from the article: An overwhelming majority of respondents (96 percent) feel that online privacy is crucial. And their actions speak for themselves: 97 percent say they take steps to protect their online data, whether they are on a computer or mobile device. There is a near equal percentage of people who trust (39 percent) and distrust (34 percent) search engines across all generations. Across the board, there is a universal distrust of social media (95 percent). We can then safely assume that respondents are more likely to trust search engines to protect their data than social media. When asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “I feel confident about sharing my personal data online,” 87 percent of respondents disagree or strongly disagree.
ProAm 7y ago
Take a look at the Kiwi Broswer [1] it's a fork of Chrome for android, lets you add extensions and has a built in dark mode and ad blocker. I love Firefox for my desktop but found it extremely slow on android so Ive been using this for about a month and have been really happy. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowser.browser&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...
yegle 7y ago
Have being using my own DNS server with pihole, couldn't be happier. https://githuh.com/yegle/your-dns https://githuh.com/yegle/your-dns
- shakyshakyshaky 7y ago
  https://github.com/yegle/your-dns https://github.com/yegle/your-dns fixed link also, this is a really interesting project; would you mind allowing me to interview you over IM at some point? I'm trying to improve my breadth of knowledge by doing deep dives into unfamiliar areas.
tracker1 7y ago
I've been using Brave on Android for similar reasons... Firefox at least to me, felt too slow with ad blocking enabled. I'm hoping that Brave, Edge and Opera maintain the API compatibility in their downstream forks.
wdr1 7y ago
Then again, consider Firefox ad blocking on Andriod (Google) is much better than Firefox ad blocking on iOS.
- magduf 7y ago
  IIRC, that's because Firefox on iOS is basically just a re-skinned Safari, because Apple won't let anyone use a web engine other than their own.

devoply 7y ago

> The deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API is to gain back this control, and to further now instrument and report how web pages are filtered since now the exact filters which are applied to web page is information which will be collectable by Google Chrome. Which means in the medium run they are looking to deal with ad-blockers altogether because if you can instrument what rules are applies to pages by the most popular blockers you know exactly how to get around those rules. Basically this is a way to dump all that data into Google's pockets so it can slowly but surely get around all of that.

jmkni 7y ago

One of the big downsides of using iOS over Android is the lack of an adblocker. Overall I still prefer it (iOS), but definitely a pet peeve of mine. Edit: nevermind, I'm an idiot!

haraball 7y ago
I'm happy with 1Blocker [1] for blocking ads on iOS. [1]: https://1blocker.com/ https://1blocker.com/
- jmkni 7y ago
  Ah thanks, will check it out!
dkoston 7y ago
Curious about this. Are you expecting something different than going to the safari settings and enabling a third party content blocker? What are you looking for that isn’t offered by that feature?
auiya 7y ago
This is simply untrue. There are a myriad of adblockers available for iOS (crystal, Wipr, Adblock, Adguard, Purify, 1Blocker X, etc), as well as VPN applications which provide content blocking.
- fwn 7y ago
  Not an iOS user, so I can't test it: does this block the usual suspects like search, Facebook, Reddit or Instagram ads? I tried to block those for a while now on Android and wasn't able to find any other solution than using Firefox with ubo. I don't need to block in-app ads; I just bought my way out of those.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    iOS content blockers only function in Safari and certain views.
skinnymuch 7y ago
There are Safari ad blockers. A lot of them. There are also some local vpn ad blockers. Searching in App Store should bring up a lot of options.
dan1234 7y ago
The Firefox Focus content blocker blocks pretty much every advert for me, works in mobile safari and has done for years. Blocking ads in apps is certainly trickier though.

sametmax 7y ago

Same for youtube. The mobile youtube site experience is subpart compared to the app, but the app is bombarding you with ads you can't block.

phoe-krk 7y ago
NewPipe fixes it. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
- japanoise 7y ago
  Second a vote for newpipe and add that it supports downloads, play in background, etc.
  - ce4 7y ago
    Newpipe often breaks and fdroid is slow to update... there's also the Background video playback fix add-on for FF, works really well. https://addons.mozilla.org/de/android/addon/video-background-play-fix/ https://addons.mozilla.org/de/android/addon/video-background...
    - midnightGhost 7y ago
      YouTube Vanced is good. https://vanced.app/ https://vanced.app/
- sametmax 7y ago
  Thank you.
- sinancan2 7y ago
  I worry that this could cause one's Google account to be closed.
auiya 7y ago
I pay for YouTube music, which also removes ads anywhere you are using YouTube with your logged in account. I was testing YT Music as a replacement for Spotify (since push notifications are broken and they apparently have no intention to fix). The YouTube experience of paid vs. non-paid is night and day, I highly recommend it.

scblzn 7y ago

Kiwi Browser on Android (Chromium based) supports all extensions and has an intelligent dark mode : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowser.browser&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...

enitihas 7y ago

Can you tell us which browser apart from mobile firefox allows extensions? Safari no, Edge no. I use firefox mobile for extensions, but browser vendors might want to make different tradeoffs since mobile has different requirements, and it is used by far too many people for far too much personal tasks and allowing access to browser data may not be as desirable as on Desktop. 99% of mobile users don't have the technical skills required to understand what data extensions will have access to. Off course, Apple doesn't even allow other browsers on iOS, so firefox iOS can't support extensions even if it wanted to. If you look at a single policy and decide that you know all you need to know, then maybe you should first ask for apple to change.

feep 7y ago
Yandex. Kiwi. (both Android) I think there are more. But I don't remember which ones.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  But all of them are Chromium based, so are either going to be crippled by the Google proposal in the article, or they're going to diverge more significantly.
  - feep 7y ago
    True, both points. But if they added extensions (which mobile Chromium doesn't support at all), they're not shy about divergence. Not meant as a comment on the proposal or FF vs Chromium. This (v3) proposal, and the slick rewrite of Mozilla's stuff probably means I will be off of Chromium for mobile and desktop some time in the hazy future.
dmitriid 7y ago
Safari allows ad blocking extensions on mobile
- enitihas 7y ago
  Ad blocking, not any way to run "browser extensions". The parent is saying "all you need to do is look at Chrome on Android & the fact that it does not allow extensions at all." iOS doesn't allow any browser vendor to let run extensions too, let alone run them in Safari.

burtonator 7y ago

> I predict Firefox will see a large uptake in market share if ad and content blockers become ineffective on desktop Chrome. I predict you're right but not enough for it to make a difference. The one thing that I've come to realize is that we're losing. The web is now closed. Owned by Facebook and Twitter for the most part. Facebook screws you over on privacy but most people don't care. Sure... you and I do, however, the masses don't care about defecting as long as they save $0.99.

this_user 7y ago
> Owned by Facebook and Twitter for the most part Add Apple and their walled garden to that list. When Intel first attempted to introduce "Trusted Computing" in the early 2000s, there was a huge outcry. Few years later Apple comes along with something that is much more restrictive, and now people are happy to accept that you can only do with your device whatever the manufacturer allows you to do.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Apple is the surviving of the 8 and 16 bit home computer cultures of vertical integration. The PC only escaped that model due to Compaq's reverse engineering trick and IBM's failure to take it back. Something that most OEMs are quite found of having back as per current Android and laptop models.
hedora 7y ago
This is simply not true. People do care about online privacy, and they care more than they used to. I care about my privacy, but the steps I can take to protect it are inadequate. I am in the vast majority (97%) according to this survey: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/labs-survey-finds-privacy-concerns-distrust-of-social-media-rampant-with-all-age-groups/ https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/labs-su... Here are some numbers from the article: An overwhelming majority of respondents (96 percent) feel that online privacy is crucial. And their actions speak for themselves: 97 percent say they take steps to protect their online data, whether they are on a computer or mobile device. There is a near equal percentage of people who trust (39 percent) and distrust (34 percent) search engines across all generations. Across the board, there is a universal distrust of social media (95 percent). We can then safely assume that respondents are more likely to trust search engines to protect their data than social media. When asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “I feel confident about sharing my personal data online,” 87 percent of respondents disagree or strongly disagree.

ProAm 7y ago

Take a look at the Kiwi Broswer [1] it's a fork of Chrome for android, lets you add extensions and has a built in dark mode and ad blocker. I love Firefox for my desktop but found it extremely slow on android so Ive been using this for about a month and have been really happy. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowser.browser&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...

yegle 7y ago

Have being using my own DNS server with pihole, couldn't be happier. https://githuh.com/yegle/your-dns https://githuh.com/yegle/your-dns

shakyshakyshaky 7y ago
https://github.com/yegle/your-dns https://github.com/yegle/your-dns fixed link also, this is a really interesting project; would you mind allowing me to interview you over IM at some point? I'm trying to improve my breadth of knowledge by doing deep dives into unfamiliar areas.

tracker1 7y ago

I've been using Brave on Android for similar reasons... Firefox at least to me, felt too slow with ad blocking enabled. I'm hoping that Brave, Edge and Opera maintain the API compatibility in their downstream forks.

wdr1 7y ago

Then again, consider Firefox ad blocking on Andriod (Google) is much better than Firefox ad blocking on iOS.

magduf 7y ago
IIRC, that's because Firefox on iOS is basically just a re-skinned Safari, because Apple won't let anyone use a web engine other than their own.