4 ms·

Most ad blockers work by blocking certain network requests that are initiated by the page. DDG Privacy Essentials reduces the number of network requests by 95%

by a_imho 6y ago

Most ad blockers work by blocking certain network requests that are initiated by the page. DDG Privacy Essentials reduces the number of network requests by 95% and the download weight by 80%. DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials reduces the CPU time of the article page from 31s to just 1.6s. All other tested extensions also bring CPU time down to at most 10s. It seems the single most important thing regarding Real Word Performance is a good content blocking functionality (not to mention other boons). Why don't browsers come with one by default?

c17r 6y ago
Because the most popular browser is made by a company that makes the vast majority of their money from ads.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  And the other browsers are sponsored heavily by said company - either financially or technologically.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  And to large extent, the same developers that complain about ads are the ones to blame that Chrome has reached that market leadership.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rhythmofrest 6y ago
Firefox does. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop?as=u&utm_source=inproduct#w_what-enhanced-tracking-protection-blocks https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...
- a_imho 6y ago
  It blocks some tracking, but is it a good content blocker? Last time I checked I still needed to install ublock or equivalent for acceptable performance. How hard it is to incorporate something an extension already provides?
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Not hard at all, they could include uBlock add-on by default (as they did with Pocket) except allow people to disable it this time. They do rely on Google's advertising revenue for multiple $100M of funding; so they presumably don't want to be too successful in democratising ad-blocking. Eich used to be a controlling influence on FF (as Mozilla CEO), since he was ousted he heads Brave browser which includes content blocking by default (and a content revenue model). In short perhaps FF/Mozilla are curtailed by financial considerations.
    - TheRealPomax 6y ago
      Not unless they buy uBlock first, which is what they did with Pocket. And unlike Pocket, which was already a company looking to get bought, uBlock is very much not that.
      - pythux 6y ago
        Nit: you must be talking about uBlock Origin, because uBlock was actually bought[1]. [1] https://blog.getadblock.com/the-adblock-family-gets-a-new-addition-62a887d36960 https://blog.getadblock.com/the-adblock-family-gets-a-new-ad...
    - behnamoh 6y ago
      But even Brave doesn't block some google ads.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joshmanders 6y ago
Brave Browser is Chrome with that built into it.
- tempodox 6y ago
  ... and that inserts its own spam: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
  - VMG 6y ago
    to be fair, affiliate codes don't spike the CPU
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Can you back that statement up. You're saying that Brave inserts spam content in to pages? Do you have examples? Never seen that myself in my time using Brave. FWIW I quite like the BAT and affiliate link model and was made aware of both prior to my install.
    - tempodox 6y ago
      https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we...
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        Noted, and bad, but I don't consider altering links to be "inserting spam".
      - 0-_-0 6y ago
        That's not spam and I personally don't even have an issue with it
- TraceFree 6y ago
  When you fire up the Brave browser, it pings Google's servers and starts collecting your data. google doesnt give away multimillion dollar software applications without the ability to capture data with them.
eli 6y ago
Aggressive content blockers also tend to break websites. Not big sites like Washington Post for very long, but all sorts of small sites and in confusing ways. For example, we had to rearchitect part of our site that was talking about marketing and advertising because various ad blockers decide any url pattern with '/advertising/' shouldn't be loaded.
- Flenser 6y ago
  We had to rename our cookie police modal so unlock users could get into our app.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Because a web browser should be fundamentally neutral by default. All content should get rendered the same way, regardless of which server or domain it comes from. That doesn't preclude the browser from making choices to protect privacy and security, but all sites should be treated equally (as Safari does with its tracking protection, for instance).
- a_imho 6y ago
  I don't think I agree with that. Do you want spam treated the same as your regular email for example? It is up to the implementation to decide what is {spy|mal|track|junk}ware. The reverse is also problematic, sites treat browsers (or even user agents) very differently. Why should browsers not do the same?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    For email, I agree some sort of spam filtering is necessary—but I wouldn't want an email client to alter the contents of messages depending on who the sender is. (By default at least—customization through plugins is great!) > Sites treat browsers (or even user agents) very differently. Why should browsers not do the same? But isn't that exactly why browsers are now phasing out user agents? I'm all for that—I shouldn't have to fake my user agent in order for Slack to work in a mobile browser. If there's a certain browser feature that a website needs, and the website detects this feature isn't present and changes its behavior accordingly, that's quite different!

by a_imho 6y ago

c17r 6y ago

Because the most popular browser is made by a company that makes the vast majority of their money from ads.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
And the other browsers are sponsored heavily by said company - either financially or technologically.
pjmlp 6y ago
And to large extent, the same developers that complain about ads are the ones to blame that Chrome has reached that market leadership.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rhythmofrest 6y ago

Firefox does. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop?as=u&utm_source=inproduct#w_what-enhanced-tracking-protection-blocks https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...

a_imho 6y ago
It blocks some tracking, but is it a good content blocker? Last time I checked I still needed to install ublock or equivalent for acceptable performance. How hard it is to incorporate something an extension already provides?
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Not hard at all, they could include uBlock add-on by default (as they did with Pocket) except allow people to disable it this time. They do rely on Google's advertising revenue for multiple $100M of funding; so they presumably don't want to be too successful in democratising ad-blocking. Eich used to be a controlling influence on FF (as Mozilla CEO), since he was ousted he heads Brave browser which includes content blocking by default (and a content revenue model). In short perhaps FF/Mozilla are curtailed by financial considerations.
  - TheRealPomax 6y ago
    Not unless they buy uBlock first, which is what they did with Pocket. And unlike Pocket, which was already a company looking to get bought, uBlock is very much not that.
    - pythux 6y ago
      Nit: you must be talking about uBlock Origin, because uBlock was actually bought[1]. [1] https://blog.getadblock.com/the-adblock-family-gets-a-new-addition-62a887d36960 https://blog.getadblock.com/the-adblock-family-gets-a-new-ad...
  - behnamoh 6y ago
    But even Brave doesn't block some google ads.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

joshmanders 6y ago

Brave Browser is Chrome with that built into it.

tempodox 6y ago
... and that inserts its own spam: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
- VMG 6y ago
  to be fair, affiliate codes don't spike the CPU
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Can you back that statement up. You're saying that Brave inserts spam content in to pages? Do you have examples? Never seen that myself in my time using Brave. FWIW I quite like the BAT and affiliate link model and was made aware of both prior to my install.
  - tempodox 6y ago
    https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we...
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Noted, and bad, but I don't consider altering links to be "inserting spam".
    - 0-_-0 6y ago
      That's not spam and I personally don't even have an issue with it
TraceFree 6y ago
When you fire up the Brave browser, it pings Google's servers and starts collecting your data. google doesnt give away multimillion dollar software applications without the ability to capture data with them.

eli 6y ago

Aggressive content blockers also tend to break websites. Not big sites like Washington Post for very long, but all sorts of small sites and in confusing ways. For example, we had to rearchitect part of our site that was talking about marketing and advertising because various ad blockers decide any url pattern with '/advertising/' shouldn't be loaded.

Flenser 6y ago
We had to rename our cookie police modal so unlock users could get into our app.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

Because a web browser should be fundamentally neutral by default. All content should get rendered the same way, regardless of which server or domain it comes from. That doesn't preclude the browser from making choices to protect privacy and security, but all sites should be treated equally (as Safari does with its tracking protection, for instance).

a_imho 6y ago
I don't think I agree with that. Do you want spam treated the same as your regular email for example? It is up to the implementation to decide what is {spy|mal|track|junk}ware. The reverse is also problematic, sites treat browsers (or even user agents) very differently. Why should browsers not do the same?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  For email, I agree some sort of spam filtering is necessary—but I wouldn't want an email client to alter the contents of messages depending on who the sender is. (By default at least—customization through plugins is great!) > Sites treat browsers (or even user agents) very differently. Why should browsers not do the same? But isn't that exactly why browsers are now phasing out user agents? I'm all for that—I shouldn't have to fake my user agent in order for Slack to work in a mobile browser. If there's a certain browser feature that a website needs, and the website detects this feature isn't present and changes its behavior accordingly, that's quite different!