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Honestly, I can't really browse on my phone anymore. I'm... spoiled by FF + uBlock and I can't tolerate all the distractions. Will we ever get enough traction
by grenoire 6y ago
Honestly, I can't really browse on my phone anymore. I'm... spoiled by FF + uBlock and I can't tolerate all the distractions.
Will we ever get enough traction on either blocking mechanisms or stop shoving ads everywhere? Will the general public experience the pleasures of an ad-less internet?
P.S. I'm on an iPhone, blockers failed me so far. Thanks for the suggestions fellas.
- zaik 6y agoFirefox Mobile + uBlock works great for me.
- bentcorner 6y agoIt works pretty well but Edge/Chrome feel better than FF on mobile. Scrolling performance is probably the biggest difference. I've had issues with using FF as the default webview too.
- kgwxd 6y agoFells better even with all the ads and other annoyances uBO blocks? I've never noticed a scrolling performance issue myself, let alone one worth tolerating that stuff over.
- mminer237 6y agoYou can always use Brave. Not quite as good as uBO, but it still blocks most ads while being Chromium-based.
- boring_twenties 6y agoFrom my perspective, scrolling performance is a minor annoyance, whereas the inability to block ads is basically a complete showstopper.
- godelski 6y agoFF Mobile has uBlock
- temp0826 6y agoFirefox on iOS does not support extensions, fwiw
- benjohnson 6y agoAs I understand it, it's Apples fault for requiring all browsers delivered by it's App Store to be basically wrappers around Safari.
- throwaway09223 6y agoHow has Apple not been strung up on antitrust grounds over this?
- michaelmrose 6y agoBecause IOS is a small fraction of the smartphone and PC market.
- kaba0 6y agoIt doesn’t preclude antitrust investigations.
- michaelmrose 6y agoI don't think it is in violation of existing law but I'm totally for addition protections like the ability of users to install software of their choosing on their own hardware including additional app stores.
- thereare5lights 6y agoYou can use Firefox Focus as the ad blocker for Safari on iOS
- jjbinx007 6y agoBlokada for Android is a pretty good DNS-based ad blocker.
- bootlooped 6y agoCame here to say this same thing about NextDNS. Plus they'll block ads in apps, which uBlock Origin is not going to help you with. It seems like DNS ad blocking is a pretty good solution on mobile, with different pros and cons. I do also use uBlock Origin on Firefox Mobile though.
- leeoniya 6y agoor if you have root, AdAway can patch your hosts file.
- Ayesh 6y agoOr, you can just set a DoT server that blocks ads by default.
- ignoramous 6y agoYou can definitely do better than use Blokada: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/8536 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/8536
- na85 6y agoPosting this from my oneplus running firefox and ublock origin. Firefox has been my daily driver on mobile for a few years now (since before Quantum) and it's been reliably great.
- rplnt 6y agoAnymore? I don't think browsing on a phone was ever viable. The problems changed over time, but I never found myself using the browser for anything other than absolute necessity. It's sad really. Back in the day Opera with Turbo (or whatever it was called) was the peak of mobile browser usability for me.
- timbit42 6y agoFF+uBO works great on Android.
- calvinmorrison 6y agoFirefox does support no script on mobile! It's great
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- ub99 6y agoI use AdGuard pro on an iPhone and generally don’t see any ads at all in Safari. I believe this app will block ads in any iOS browser.
- pcf 6y agoAFAIK, ads can only be blocked in Safari on iOS. I have Adguard on my iPhone, but it only works in Safari – not Firefox, which is the browser I use. So that's very annoying.
- axlee 6y agoThere are DNS blockers for iOS, which block most ads, including in-app ads. Just need to find the right list.
- jonathanlydall 6y agoEdge browser on iOS has an option to make use of content blockers in the same way that Safari does. Last I checked Chrome doesn’t. I’m surprised to hear that Firefox doesn’t have the option to do so. I don’t know if it’s just muscle memory, but Safari on iOS is still my browser of choice due to the way you open and close tabs in it.
- beagle3 6y agoFirefox has an additional app called Firefox Focus which installs a content blocker for both Safari and Firefox. Also for Safari, Magic Lasso AdBlocker does a very good job.
- coldpie 6y agoI'd like to switch to iPhone, but the lack of real Firefox + uBO is what keeps me from doing it. It's good to know there are some options there, thanks for the pointer.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIf ad blocking is all you’re looking for, I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad in Safari iOS with Firefox focus content blocker, or Wipr content blocker. I don’t notice any difference between Firefox or Chrome + ublock origin and Safari + Wipr/Firefox Focus.
- sudosysgen 6y agoWell, I use FF+uBlock on my phone :) It works super well.
- cmeacham98 6y agoThey said they're on iOS, where you can only use WebKit, and therefore extensions like uBO are not possible.
- sudosysgen 6y agoAh, that was edited in after I wrote my comment, sadly.
- crocsarecool 6y agoI can’t look up a recipe for boiled eggs without coming upon a 15 paragraph essay with ads in between each paragraph. It’s so obnoxious now. I don’t mind that people want to monetize, but it’s getting off putting when it is so obnoxious.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoThe. Worst. I don’t care at all about any of this. Give me the time they boil for ffs. I don’t know if it’s sites paying by the word, or SEO, or some “value added” psychological trick. It is getting worse.
- bbarnett 6y agoI bet they've noticed 'more time spent on the page' since they added interesting stories to those recipes! "When I was little, Grandma did this and that and blah blah blah". Of course, the time spent is cursing, and skimming and hunting to find useful info. No one is finding the story interesting, but it looks good on metrics? I wonder if the above is accurate or not.
- jlund-molfese 6y agoI think the idea is that Google allegedly prioritizes pages by user dwell time, the idea being that if someone spends 10 minutes on your page, it's more relevant than another page where the user only spends 5 seconds before closing the tab. So forcing you to scroll through an essay on the complete history of nutmeg before you can see any of the ingredients in a chocolate chip cookie recipe may improve SEO
- Semaphor 6y agobut every recipe site I've recently encountered, had a "jump to recipe" link right at the top
- Kelamir 6y agoI use https://recipe-search.typesense.org/ https://recipe-search.typesense.org/ for finding recipes, it has scraped over 2M of them. No distractions.
- dont__panic 6y agoI host my own VPN on a raspberry pi at home so I can use my pi.hole even when I'm off my home wifi network. Unfortunately that seems to be the most comprehensive solution I can find for iOS, and sadly Android phones are pretty much all too large for me.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago> Will the general public experience the pleasures of an ad-less internet? Remember how cable was supposed to replace ads on over the air tv? It was about minutes before it was all ads too. Streaming services are starting to get there but then the shows themselves are ads. And you have a scenario where Netflix and YouTube couldn’t exist in scenarios that didn’t rely on our bandwidth models and massive anti-competitive models. ... so IDKMAN... I don’t know how we get to an internet where people making things aren’t expecting to get paid for their submissions, especially now that we’ve jumped in there with both feet. I personally would pay for a no-bullshit internet, but it’s just cable tv’s promise all over again isn’t it? As great as something would start out, soon would come the influencers and the narrative pushers and the censorship and the “forum sliding” and the downvotes / echochambers / bubbles / power tripping moderation... I’m wondering if the solution isn’t just to give it all up and use the tools only when you need them. A cabin in the woods, but a spotty dialup connection for when you need to find something.
- freebuju 6y ago> would pay for a no-bullshit internet The money is in selling you ads, on a revolving basis. Not in you ponying up a subscription fee to not see those ads. If it's not the ads, it's the usual FBI or whatever government surveillance program tracking you. You are right on the solution however. Some ads and tracking are so pervasive (e.g smart TVs) that the only truly effective way to mitigate against them is to cut down on or eliminate your exposure to these devices.
- Dobbs 6y agoI run NextDNS on my phone. It isn't perfect particularly because it is an all or nothing type thing which gets frustrating with URL redirects. But it is far better than not.
- isatty 6y agoOn an iPhone? I was a noscript user from 10+ years ago (I guess?) and I’ve been using uBo for as long as I can remember but isn’t Firefox on iPhone just a wrapper? Is it battery efficient? As a workaround I use a Pi-Hole (except, not on a pi).
- mcyukon 6y agoIt is just a webkit wrapper. At least the last time I looked into it. UBlock Origin isn't possible. You can get some Apple sanctioned Ad-Blockers, but I think most (or all?) of them use a invisible VPN with DNS based ad blocking. Mozilla has Firefox Focus for iOS, it does Ad Blocking but it's main selling point is No Tracking, No history and No synced bookmarks either
- xaos____ 6y agoInstall Firefox focus, go to Safari settings, add Firefox focus as Content Blocker and Firefox ( Not Focus, the real one) will show no ads anymore. Works, because Firefox on iOS is mandated to use the Safari engine
- nashashmi 6y agoI hear you. One of the greatest reasons I miss Firefox on android was because it allowed ublock.
- kube-system 6y agoRun pihole or a similar dns solution at the network level, and you can block domains without installing anything on your devices.
- approxim8ion 6y agoHost based blocking is certainly better than nothing, but uBlock offers much more comprehensive and expansive blocking, not to mention cosmetic filtering and other features that you can't achieve with PiHole/NextDNS/AdguardDNS/Blokada etc..
- kube-system 6y agoFor sure, it's not as powerful as something that can modify the DOM, etc. But, you can also run both, if you still prefer uBlock on your PC.
- approxim8ion 6y agoYup, I agree. Running both right now, the additional benefit of moving DNS queries away from my ISP (I pay for NextDNS) is certainly a good one too
- computronus 6y agoI use both - uBO at the browser level and a PiHole for DNS. It's "defense in depth" - there's more than one layer of defense for something nefarious to get through.
- kitsunesoba 6y agoOn iOS, Safari with a couple content blockers (like Purify and/or 1Blocker) do a pretty decent job. Once in a blue moon something will get through, but the goal of dramatically improving load times and decrudding pages is accomplished well enough for me. On Android, Firefox supports a subset of extensions that includes uBlock Origin. Chrome seems to be the dominant browser on Android but regardless of how good it is, I can't imagine not using Firefox there.
- rattray 6y agoFirefox is my default browser on Android, and I use Chrome when I need to. It works fine. I personally tend to use Chrome for "logged-in" internet use, and Firefox for "logged-out" use like browsing, news, etc. True on both desktop and mobile. Partly this is because Google's password vault has great UX across Chrome and Android apps.
- LegitShady 6y agoIf you have android you can FF + Ublock on android. Sadly ios devices don't seem to have that option.
- therealmarv 6y agoUsing Adguard on Android for some years. It works really good with Chrome and all other apps. Mobile browsing without any adblocker is a very bad experience.
- nonbirithm 6y agoIf Mozilla can continue honing their mobile browsing team and keep alive a mobile web browser with pre-Manifest v3 WebExtension support, then maybe the status quo doesn't have to change. Advertisers can push whatever they want and the 0.1% of users that want to use uBlock can happily block them all. As far as the current landscape of adblocking goes, I have no real complaints. If people try to encourage too much radical change with how ads are distributed, I fear that the advertising agencies will panic and all start to do what YouTube does, which is to serve the ads from the same domain as the content, rendering all domain-based adblocking useless. At that point, the only thing between the general Internet and ads will be uBlock, and if Google obtains complete control of the WebExtension standards, I'm not sure there would be anything else we could do.
- fsflover 6y agoFirefox with uBlock works fine on my Pinephone ;)
- bobiny 6y agoI’m using this on iOS https://better.fyi/ https://better.fyi/ I don’t remember last time I saw ads.
- Svperstar 6y ago>spoiled by FF+uBlock and I can't tolerate all the distractions. I run FF+uBlock on my S21 Ultra. Works just like the desktop.
- sedatk 6y agoNot possible with an iPhone, I presume.
- blub 6y agoGive Brave a try on iOS. Besides offering ad blocking, it can block all JS (unfortunately just an on/off toggle, no subdomain specific settings) and this takes care of most annoyances like cookie pop-ups, article count limiters, ads, etc. On the other hand, mobile websites tend to break more often without JS compared to desktop websites.
- mtone 6y agoMy iPad Air 1 is aging, slow, and I loved it but I simply won't replace a machine where a publicly-funded news/docs store app in particular gets laden with unskippable ads. Half a thousand bucks for this frustration, no thanks! No amount of content/entertainment is worth this.
- jamesgeck0 6y agoOn iPhone you have Safari content blockers. Better Blocker and Firefox Focus are two popular ones. There's also a Lockdown, an open source firewall implemented using iOS VPN capabilities (though it doesn't send your requests through an external server). Lockdown is able to block trackers in any app, not just Safari.
- christophilus 6y agoBrave on iOS is great. So is the DDG browser.
- pacifika 6y agoFirefox focus includes a decent safari content blocker
- pouta 6y agoInsight Browser. No affiliation, just a very very happy user.
- asiachick 6y agoYou can push to force Apple to allow other browser engines. Firefox on Android supports extensions including uBlock Origin. Firefox on iOS is only allowed to be skinned Safari https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios
- zargon 6y agoThis is one of the top reasons I can't buy an iPhone.
- RGamma 6y agoI have good results with AdGuard on iPhone (functions as content blocker in Safari). It's not perfect and difficult to customize but works well for the most part. It even gets rid of YT video ads (mostly anyway) I also combine it with NextDNS