7 ms·

Resilience: An Ad Blocker Without Compromises

59 points by freddyym 7y ago

dest 7y ago
HTTP is filtered? No problem, let's transfer ads through websockets or webrtc!
chipperyman573 7y ago
Any advantages over a hosts file?
- dest 7y ago
  You are not restricted to a per-host filter, but can filter by URL
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  A spartan themed logo? More seriously, it does automatic updates, so presumably the maintenance burden on the end users is lower.
dexen 7y ago
> Resilience doesn't sell out your privacy with "acceptable ads". Resilience won't be blocked by your web browser's developers. Excellent. I'm glad to see uBlock Origin getting some much needed competition, and a good take on Chrome's adblocking downgrade. >Transparent HTTP/HTTPS proxy for Windows, Linux and macOS. Not so great. Getting HTTP/1 right is hard, getting SSL right is hard, integration is quite hard just as well. And then there's HTTP/2, and WebSockets and other protocols. Possible results of failure: connection reset, encryption downgrade attack, malicious script injection, credentials stealing, browsing history stealing, XSS, SSL spoofing, IDN homograph attack. Sadly Chrome seems to leave no better option at this point. OTOH, in the longer run it makes sense for ad blockers & similar tools to be ran as a wholly separate process, offering one more layer of separation.
- gruez 7y ago
  >OTOH, in the longer run it makes sense for ad blockers & similar tools to be ran as a wholly separate process, offering one more layer of separation. what's the advantage of that?
  - dexen 7y ago
    (Hopefully) the OS enforces memory protection between the adblock process and any HTTP client process, thus limiting attacks to only the data that resides in, or flows through, the adblock process. With a bit more advanced setup, you could also completely cut off the adblock process from accessing any files or any other resources related to the browser, further nailing down security. Sure, it is possible to have similar (or equivalent) setup for browser plugins, but it requires some special engineering done in the browser - and in that scenario no other apps benefit from the protection. Let's not forget there's many more crucial HTTP user agents than just the web browser.
    - gruez 7y ago
      >(Hopefully) the OS enforces memory protection between the adblock process and any HTTP client process, thus lowering the direct attack surface to only the data that resides in, or flows through, the adblock process. >With a bit more advanced setup, you could even completely cut off the adblock process from accessing any files or any other resources related to the browser, further nailing down security. How would that even work? The adblocking process has full access to whatever's being passed through it, and therefore it can eavesdrop or tamper (eg. inject malicious js) with the contents. >Sure, it is possible to have similar (or equivalent) setup for browser plugins, but it requires some special engineering done in the browser - and in that scenario no other apps benefit from the protection. Let's not forget there's much more crucial HTTP user agents than just the browser. Sounds useful, but it's a lot like dns based adblockers or hosts file, only worse because it only works locally, and only for applications that support/respect the proxy settings.
      - dexen 7y ago
saagarjha 7y ago
> Resilience is an ad blocker for your computer that works with any browser on any operating system. This might be a bit difficult on some of the mobile platforms, at least with the code that's currently in the repository :P
marcinzm 7y ago
Interesting but is the project even alive anymore? Last commit was 9 months ago. Combined with it saying it's early early alpha, no instructions and no builds means it doesn't look to be in a good state to use.
basch 7y ago
I welcome more competition in this space, especially ones that operate at a different abstraction level than others, but this one doesnt look active anymore. I know brave isnt the most popular product / business model, but their rust reimplementation of the Adblock Plus syntax, a rewrite of uBlock Origins and Cliqz, might hopefully be a valuable contribution to the open source world. Regardless of how people feel about the ethics of ad blocking, being able to dynamically block parts of websites has become as or more important than anti-virus, for safety. https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/ https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/ https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust Although it will make troubleshooting a nightmare, necessary protection at multiple levels of the stack is becoming a reality. NextDNS (or quad9, pihole, adguard) combined with Brave (or uBlock Origin, Cliqz) in combination are going to keep people safer, despite the shortcomings of both dns based and active page filters and parsing. It would be nice to be able to manage and maintain filter list configurations across all browsers, devices, and dns. Some sort of central management that updates and propagates NextDNS, Brave, uBlock Origin, uBlock Matrix, and Dark Reader. uBlock Matrix and Dark Reader are especially cumbersome to use between Chrome and Firefox on different devices.
- spking 7y ago
  > I know brave isnt the most popular product / business model Curious what you mean by this. Are BATs unpopular or is there some other issue with the browser itself?
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Many people don't like ad blockers that let in ads. That's the obvious issue with the brave browser. The shocking thing to me is that some people tolerate this behavior. I'll take an ad blocker that blocks all ads myself, not one coming from the ad industry itself. Nowadays, this applies to chrome and safari too if they've gotten rid of their old plugin apis that enabled ublock (hard to keep track of spyware features).
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    Do you know of any website that accepts them? I've seen them on some exchanges, but the current procedure is to sell them directly. Who's buying them (besides speculators)?
vxNsr 7y ago
Looks dead, seems the maintainer gave up.
lodovic 7y ago
Is this any different than a PiHole?
- vxNsr 7y ago
  PiHole is nice because you can protect all the devices in your house at the same time, but it’s annoying bec if you want to unblock something bec a page is messed up you need to go to PiHole service to unblock it and it’s not easy to set up temp unblocks
steveharman 7y ago
Once we've all blocked ads from every possible angle, what is the model we'll be using to pay for social media, photo sharing, email, video sharing,. instant messaging and so on? I dislike ads as much as the next person but I don't comprehend what monetary model is being lined up to replace their revenue generating abilities, for service providers Aside from lots of small subscriptions.
- wideasleep1 7y ago
  Cash is king. (full disclosure: Protonmail and VPN subscriber, donate to Marcel Borkhorst M66B for his excellent Netguard app, never had FB/IG accounts, and only used Twitter once to solve an issue with TMobile's TForce, which was shockingly efficient, never had the app).
- marcinzm 7y ago
  Presumably with the money you save from not buying overpriced or unnecessary things due to ads you can afford some subscriptions.
joelthelion 7y ago
Or you could use a browser that doesn't actively try to prevent you from using adblocking extensions.
- freddyym 7y ago
  Tor is by far the best browser. However as a part of compartmentalisation I use un-googled chromium and right now it is struggling to install anything (others have this issue.)
avel 7y ago
Does anyone remember Privoxy https://www.privoxy.org/ https://www.privoxy.org/ ? I've been filtering and removing junk from the web since the early 2000s. With https now prevalent, filtering with a proxy server remains annoying. I vastly prefer the model of uBlock Origin for desktops, and a combination of Firefox + uBlock origin and a dns blocker (Blokada) on Android.
- Dolores12 7y ago
  What about https://www.admuncher.com https://www.admuncher.com ? :) Since 1999.
  - 0x4a42 7y ago
    Ad Muncher is broken/abandonware (hasn't been updated since 2014).
- rnhmjoj 7y ago
  I'm still using it and very happy with it. It's showing his age but it still works well and it's very powerful: I'm not just blocking ads and trackers but I also have some fancy redirects and filters. I hacked together a solution for https that uses a proxy to strip and rewrap TLS. It's not ideal and I would like replace it with something more reliable and fast but I couldn't find any software that does this.
jart 7y ago
Nadim apears to have ambitions of being appointed Censor of Rome.
phyzome 7y ago
Strong words from a dormant project.
squarefoot 7y ago
Can anyone explain the following text taken from the site? "Chrome executives: I know you think this won't get traction because it'll never be as easy to install as uBlock. Watch me as I make it every bit as easy by the time you finish switching to declarativeNetRequest."
- vorticalbox 7y ago
  Chrome is switch some rules around that will render current ad blockers useless.
gumby 7y ago
This is great; a proxy is definitely the way to go given how many processes use http. I used to use glimmerblocker but it gradually stopped really working. One great feature was that it was a rewrite proxy so I could, for example, suppress auto play videos, a feature I had missed since Omniweb almost 20 years ago
ectospheno 7y ago
If you don’t have an iOS app then I don’t see how you can say “all operating systems” with a straight face.

59 points by freddyym 7y ago

dest 7y ago

HTTP is filtered? No problem, let's transfer ads through websockets or webrtc!

chipperyman573 7y ago

Any advantages over a hosts file?

dest 7y ago
You are not restricted to a per-host filter, but can filter by URL
SiempreViernes 7y ago
A spartan themed logo? More seriously, it does automatic updates, so presumably the maintenance burden on the end users is lower.

dexen 7y ago

> Resilience doesn't sell out your privacy with "acceptable ads". Resilience won't be blocked by your web browser's developers. Excellent. I'm glad to see uBlock Origin getting some much needed competition, and a good take on Chrome's adblocking downgrade. >Transparent HTTP/HTTPS proxy for Windows, Linux and macOS. Not so great. Getting HTTP/1 right is hard, getting SSL right is hard, integration is quite hard just as well. And then there's HTTP/2, and WebSockets and other protocols. Possible results of failure: connection reset, encryption downgrade attack, malicious script injection, credentials stealing, browsing history stealing, XSS, SSL spoofing, IDN homograph attack. Sadly Chrome seems to leave no better option at this point. OTOH, in the longer run it makes sense for ad blockers & similar tools to be ran as a wholly separate process, offering one more layer of separation.

gruez 7y ago
>OTOH, in the longer run it makes sense for ad blockers & similar tools to be ran as a wholly separate process, offering one more layer of separation. what's the advantage of that?
- dexen 7y ago
  (Hopefully) the OS enforces memory protection between the adblock process and any HTTP client process, thus limiting attacks to only the data that resides in, or flows through, the adblock process. With a bit more advanced setup, you could also completely cut off the adblock process from accessing any files or any other resources related to the browser, further nailing down security. Sure, it is possible to have similar (or equivalent) setup for browser plugins, but it requires some special engineering done in the browser - and in that scenario no other apps benefit from the protection. Let's not forget there's many more crucial HTTP user agents than just the web browser.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >(Hopefully) the OS enforces memory protection between the adblock process and any HTTP client process, thus lowering the direct attack surface to only the data that resides in, or flows through, the adblock process. >With a bit more advanced setup, you could even completely cut off the adblock process from accessing any files or any other resources related to the browser, further nailing down security. How would that even work? The adblocking process has full access to whatever's being passed through it, and therefore it can eavesdrop or tamper (eg. inject malicious js) with the contents. >Sure, it is possible to have similar (or equivalent) setup for browser plugins, but it requires some special engineering done in the browser - and in that scenario no other apps benefit from the protection. Let's not forget there's much more crucial HTTP user agents than just the browser. Sounds useful, but it's a lot like dns based adblockers or hosts file, only worse because it only works locally, and only for applications that support/respect the proxy settings.
    - dexen 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago

> Resilience is an ad blocker for your computer that works with any browser on any operating system. This might be a bit difficult on some of the mobile platforms, at least with the code that's currently in the repository :P

marcinzm 7y ago

Interesting but is the project even alive anymore? Last commit was 9 months ago. Combined with it saying it's early early alpha, no instructions and no builds means it doesn't look to be in a good state to use.

basch 7y ago

I welcome more competition in this space, especially ones that operate at a different abstraction level than others, but this one doesnt look active anymore. I know brave isnt the most popular product / business model, but their rust reimplementation of the Adblock Plus syntax, a rewrite of uBlock Origins and Cliqz, might hopefully be a valuable contribution to the open source world. Regardless of how people feel about the ethics of ad blocking, being able to dynamically block parts of websites has become as or more important than anti-virus, for safety. https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/ https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/ https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust Although it will make troubleshooting a nightmare, necessary protection at multiple levels of the stack is becoming a reality. NextDNS (or quad9, pihole, adguard) combined with Brave (or uBlock Origin, Cliqz) in combination are going to keep people safer, despite the shortcomings of both dns based and active page filters and parsing. It would be nice to be able to manage and maintain filter list configurations across all browsers, devices, and dns. Some sort of central management that updates and propagates NextDNS, Brave, uBlock Origin, uBlock Matrix, and Dark Reader. uBlock Matrix and Dark Reader are especially cumbersome to use between Chrome and Firefox on different devices.

spking 7y ago
> I know brave isnt the most popular product / business model Curious what you mean by this. Are BATs unpopular or is there some other issue with the browser itself?
- mnm1 7y ago
  Many people don't like ad blockers that let in ads. That's the obvious issue with the brave browser. The shocking thing to me is that some people tolerate this behavior. I'll take an ad blocker that blocks all ads myself, not one coming from the ad industry itself. Nowadays, this applies to chrome and safari too if they've gotten rid of their old plugin apis that enabled ublock (hard to keep track of spyware features).
- freeone3000 7y ago
  Do you know of any website that accepts them? I've seen them on some exchanges, but the current procedure is to sell them directly. Who's buying them (besides speculators)?

vxNsr 7y ago

Looks dead, seems the maintainer gave up.

lodovic 7y ago

Is this any different than a PiHole?

vxNsr 7y ago
PiHole is nice because you can protect all the devices in your house at the same time, but it’s annoying bec if you want to unblock something bec a page is messed up you need to go to PiHole service to unblock it and it’s not easy to set up temp unblocks

steveharman 7y ago

Once we've all blocked ads from every possible angle, what is the model we'll be using to pay for social media, photo sharing, email, video sharing,. instant messaging and so on? I dislike ads as much as the next person but I don't comprehend what monetary model is being lined up to replace their revenue generating abilities, for service providers Aside from lots of small subscriptions.

wideasleep1 7y ago
Cash is king. (full disclosure: Protonmail and VPN subscriber, donate to Marcel Borkhorst M66B for his excellent Netguard app, never had FB/IG accounts, and only used Twitter once to solve an issue with TMobile's TForce, which was shockingly efficient, never had the app).
marcinzm 7y ago
Presumably with the money you save from not buying overpriced or unnecessary things due to ads you can afford some subscriptions.

joelthelion 7y ago

Or you could use a browser that doesn't actively try to prevent you from using adblocking extensions.

freddyym 7y ago
Tor is by far the best browser. However as a part of compartmentalisation I use un-googled chromium and right now it is struggling to install anything (others have this issue.)

avel 7y ago

Does anyone remember Privoxy https://www.privoxy.org/ https://www.privoxy.org/ ? I've been filtering and removing junk from the web since the early 2000s. With https now prevalent, filtering with a proxy server remains annoying. I vastly prefer the model of uBlock Origin for desktops, and a combination of Firefox + uBlock origin and a dns blocker (Blokada) on Android.

Dolores12 7y ago
What about https://www.admuncher.com https://www.admuncher.com ? :) Since 1999.
- 0x4a42 7y ago
  Ad Muncher is broken/abandonware (hasn't been updated since 2014).
rnhmjoj 7y ago
I'm still using it and very happy with it. It's showing his age but it still works well and it's very powerful: I'm not just blocking ads and trackers but I also have some fancy redirects and filters. I hacked together a solution for https that uses a proxy to strip and rewrap TLS. It's not ideal and I would like replace it with something more reliable and fast but I couldn't find any software that does this.

jart 7y ago

Nadim apears to have ambitions of being appointed Censor of Rome.

phyzome 7y ago

Strong words from a dormant project.

squarefoot 7y ago

Can anyone explain the following text taken from the site? "Chrome executives: I know you think this won't get traction because it'll never be as easy to install as uBlock. Watch me as I make it every bit as easy by the time you finish switching to declarativeNetRequest."

vorticalbox 7y ago
Chrome is switch some rules around that will render current ad blockers useless.

gumby 7y ago

This is great; a proxy is definitely the way to go given how many processes use http. I used to use glimmerblocker but it gradually stopped really working. One great feature was that it was a rewrite proxy so I could, for example, suppress auto play videos, a feature I had missed since Omniweb almost 20 years ago

ectospheno 7y ago

If you don’t have an iOS app then I don’t see how you can say “all operating systems” with a straight face.