4 ms·

This probably an important reason people would rather browse Facebook or Instagram on their phone. It's literally a much better experience.

• sneak 6y ago
  Those are also full of unblockable ads, and spyware to boot. I don’t think that is a better experience at all.
  • fossuser 6y ago
    It still has ads, but it is also a better experience. The web ads tend to bed more intrusive and outside the UX, more irrelevant, and more malware like. I don't like those apps either, but the UI is definitely better. I'm not sure why Firefox just doesn't build adblocking into the browser as a first class feature - maybe because they rely on the Google funding? All of the "ad-supported business model supports creators, ad-supported businesses allow more people to access to the content" just feels like after the fact rationalization. The same with how good targeting is because the ads are relevant. If your content is valuable then charge for it. If browsers actually blocked all the ads like users wanted (and made a better product) then sites that couldn't support themselves without ads would die. Wouldn't that be nice.
    • kenhwang 6y ago
      > I'm not sure why Firefox just doesn't build adblocking into the browser as a first class feature - maybe because they rely on the Google funding? They kinda do. They keep building APIs requested by the adblockers so that adblocking can continue to work efficiently/effecitvely. They're also blocking the underlying abuses of advertising by increasing privacy by making it more difficult to track/fingerprint, increased security with the safe browsing checks (phishing/malware), and anti-cryptomining.
    • dependenttypes 6y ago
      > I'm not sure why Firefox just doesn't build adblocking into the browser as a first class feature - maybe because they rely on the Google funding? I am glad that they do not. I doubt that mozilla would be able to make anything nearly as good as ublock origin. They already tried something similar with "tracker blocking" - it is uncustomizable and generally inferior to ublock.
  • 0xCMP 6y ago
    I completely agree, but websites are even worse. At least the ads are super clearly marked and they're entirely unlikely to "trick" you or infect your phone with malware.
    • sneak 6y ago
      The Facebook and Instagram apps are malware: spyware, specifically. The animals have left the barn at that point. I firmly believe that if the users could see what these client apps are actually doing on their device, they would never use them.
      • hackerman123469 6y ago
        No they're not.