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I've been using the eye dropper a lot lately. It's great for making websites usable. It even works on mobile for disabling hostile ux elements such as "xyz is b

I've been using the eye dropper a lot lately. It's great for making websites usable. It even works on mobile for disabling hostile ux elements such as "xyz is better with the app" nags.

w-ll 5y ago
Are you on Android? I keep hearing FireFox and extensions like uBlock work on mobile, but it doesn't seam to be the case on iOS.
- hulahoof 5y ago
  I believe that's because all browsers on iOS are essentially safari wrappers
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    So the content blocker that you can use is those which relies on Safari's blocking.
    - commoner 5y ago
      For some reason, Content Blockers on iOS only work on Safari. Other browsers on iOS are not allowed or able to implement them. uBlock Origin is also more fully featured than Content Blockers, which don't have the on-demand whitelisting features and toggles. However, since uBlock Origin is only available as a browser extension, it can only be used with a browser that supports extensions. No browser on iOS is able to support uBlock Origin. Safari 13+ on macOS also no longer supports uBlock Origin due to platform restrictions: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
      - mikehotel 5y ago
        Firefox Focus on iOS blocks 78% with all tracker blocks are enabled, and 62% with the last “Block other content trackers” option disabled. Percentage figures are from test on https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html.
        commoner 5y ago
        Firefox Focus is a nice browser for certain use cases, but it can't compare to uBlock Origin, which scores 100% on that test for me on a fresh install with default settings (using Firefox on Android and desktop). It's interesting how Firefox Focus on iOS also acts as a Content Blocker for Safari, but I find AdGuard to be more comprehensive on iOS.
        rovr138 5y ago
        Sure you can compare them. It’s 78/100 effective on that test. And unfortunately, on iOS the alternative isn’t ublock origin.
        commoner 5y ago
        Hmm, you're right. AdGuard on Safari also scores 78% on iOS. I guess that's as good as it gets on that platform.
        chrizel 5y ago
        The Brave browser on iOS gets around 90% interestingly.
        chrizel 5y ago
        Vanilla Safari on iOS 15 beta with tracking prevention activated gets 98% - not bad!
        commoner 5y ago
        Brave on iOS only scores 77% for me with the default settings, which includes the "Block cross-site trackers" Shield setting. Do you have some other setting enabled?
        chrizel 5y ago
        Hm, ok - maybe it's because I'm also using Pi-hole in my network.
    - toiletaccount 5y ago
      hey what do you know crapple sucks shit and scroogle F's you in the A while you're asleep. PM me when we're wheeling out the corporate guillotine.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  On ios you have to use Firefox Focus. But it doesn't do as good a job as Firefox + uBlock Origin.
o10449366 5y ago
For me it's the element rules. Being able to hide every post that contains "____ liked this" on LinkedIn/FB actually makes them tolerable.
- toastal 5y ago
  I recently did it to hide the social aspects on the GitHub homepage... no explore sidebar, no reactions in the main feed.
  - maest 5y ago
    Similarly, disabling the social features on SO was very useful. The "Hot network questions" block to the side is needlessly distracting and adds 0 value.
Macha 5y ago
Yeah, the new Wikia/Fandom design finally drove me to start taking very liberal usage of custom rules
- Qi_ 5y ago
  I must’ve purged over 50% of visual elements from Fandom wikis with my uBlock filters. It’s outrageous how much garbage is served. I wonder what their UX design meetings look like.
  - edoceo 5y ago
    I imagine lots of alcohol.
    - ev1 5y ago
      There are no UI, UX, or devs present, just marketing execs.
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    I just browsed Memory Alpha with filters off. Wow. I had no idea it had gotten so bad.
    - brnt 5y ago
      I so miss pre-Wikia Memory Alpha...
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        A site:reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/ search with a plugin to redirect www. to old. if you're not logged in can replicate a lot of what Memory Alpha has from all the discussion. At least until Reddit finishes alienating everyone interested in weird niche discussion in favor of clickbait.
    - account42 5y ago
      Even for areas where there is a community wiki (e.g. uesp, combineoverwiki), Google seems to prefer the Wikia/Fandom version with all the crap on the pages.
defaulty 5y ago
I never realized what this feature did. Thank you! (And thank you to the developers)
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  Well, the icons are just terrible, utterly insipid and lacking in power. It needs labels rather than icons, and better names for “zapper” and “picker” too (something like “remove elements from this page” versus “block elements from this site”). I’m not sure if browsers apply height limits to these popups, but if not, almost every time there will be oodles of space for full labels and replacing the two single rows of buttons with columns. And even if scrolling is introduced, that’d still be better.
  - sundarurfriend 5y ago
    > It needs labels rather than icons At least they now have tooltips - I remember when choosing "Advanced mode" (which you need for a lot of features) just disabled tooltips in the UI, on the theory that advanced users shouldn't need them! I (and likely many others) argued how crazy an assumption that was, that just because we understood how HTML and JS worked, we should remember a bunch of icons and what the dev decided they meant. Thankfully they were willing to listen and change the decision, and the UI is a lot better for it.
    - MegaDeKay 5y ago
      If you have some pull here, it would be really nice to have popups added to the grid in the middle of the dropdown where the colored boxes are. I use these very rarely and can never remember which column of colored boxes do what.
      - sundarurfriend 5y ago
        The top row of those have tooltips too. I can never remember either, and have to check them every time.
hammock 5y ago
How do I use it on mobile? I can't find the download link for android.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  For what browser? If Chrome, then you're out of luck: mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions. If Firefox, then just open the menu and go to Add-ons.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Install Firefox from the Play Store. Then open this link in Firefox and install the supported extensions - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=recommended&sort=random&type=extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=re...
- Normille 5y ago
  Yandex Browser on Android [which is based on Chrome] supports Chrome extensions. I'm running it with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and a few others. If an extension won't load directly from the Chrome Webstore you can toggle 'Developer Mode' under 'chrome://extensions' and load the downloaded and unpacked CRX directly.
  - kunagi7 5y ago
    Kiwi Browser also allows to install Chrome extensions. I keep it as an alternative browser with uBlock and other useful extensions. Also, Vivaldi has a fairly complete adblocker built-in, with custom filter lists and also scores a solid 100% on that test.
    - Normille 5y ago
      I had high hopes for Kiwi Browser but, unfortunately its text-reflow feature has been broken since forever. Yandex Browser is the only one available on Android that ticks both those 'must have' boxes for me: full support for extensions and a functional text-reflow feature --without which a huge swathe of the web is unreadable for me, due to microscopic text sizes. I know other browsers have their own built-in ad-blockers, but I prefer to use uBlock Origin across all my devices so, when I setup a new one, I can just import my existing rules & settings, built up and tweaked over many years, rather than start from scratch.
sails 5y ago
This feature is so good but so confusing to use, really the best thing about ublock beyond the ad-blocking. I use very extensively, I almost wish it was a standalone tool, so that the filtering aspects could be shared more easily.
lordnacho 5y ago
This is one of the best hidden features of uBlock. While we're on the topic, how does one effectively block facebook ads? I've got simple rules to chop the ads from LinkedIn, but if you do an inspect on FB, they've been very sneaky about how the elements are set up, eg it doesn't just say "Sponsored" in a string, it's a weird mash that ends up looking like that when rendered but hard to nail down. Then again I'm more of a backend dev, so maybe that's why I don't know what to do.
- danuker 5y ago
  > weird mash that ends up looking like that when rendered but hard to nail down. It is designed to be very hard to select automatically. It is also why I don't use Facebook more than 5 minutes a week - it is among the only services where ads annoy me.
- UncleSlacky 5y ago
  FB Purity seems to do a good job: https://www.fbpurity.com https://www.fbpurity.com
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Doesn't remove sponsored posts for me.
    - UncleSlacky 5y ago
      I found this on their FAQ page: https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm > *Important News*: 4th September 2021: Sponsored Posts Issue: It seems Facebook have just changed their code for Sponsored Posts, so some people have started seeing Sponsored Posts in their Newsfeed again, I am working on fixing this, please be patient, thanks! *UPDATE* It seems for some people the sponsored posts are only getting through if your Newsfeed is set to "Top Posts", if you switch to "Most Recent", the Sponsored Posts should in theory disappear. The good news is that FBP has an option to keep you permanently on the "Most Recent" feed when you visit the Newsfeed, so that could possibly solve the issue for now, give it a try and let me know if that solves it for you. In the meantime, I will continue working on a more robust fix.
jmrm 5y ago
It also blocks the paywall in some webs that aren't too well designed (the content is loaded under a frame that hide it). It's great to have such a good tool.
efreak 5y ago
The eye dropper is also quite useful for writing userscripts and userstyles directly on Android; I tap the element, hit preview to see what happens (margins, padding, border collapse, etc), type a note at the end of the element name and sirens it to the clipboard, then move on. Back in the editor, I just paste my notes from the clipboard, and I can quickly write up a stylesheet override for a dynamic webpage without resorting to debugging on my desktop. I don't understand why Firefox mobile can't be used to debug another Firefox mobile, I I'd love it if I could open devtools off to the side and see a live tree view instead of manually prefixing the URL with `view-source:` only to find out the html doesn't actually include any content.

I've been using the eye dropper a lot lately. It's great for making websites usable. It even works on mobile for disabling hostile ux elements such as "xyz is better with the app" nags.

w-ll 5y ago

Are you on Android? I keep hearing FireFox and extensions like uBlock work on mobile, but it doesn't seam to be the case on iOS.

hulahoof 5y ago
I believe that's because all browsers on iOS are essentially safari wrappers
- zinekeller 5y ago
  So the content blocker that you can use is those which relies on Safari's blocking.
  - commoner 5y ago
    For some reason, Content Blockers on iOS only work on Safari. Other browsers on iOS are not allowed or able to implement them. uBlock Origin is also more fully featured than Content Blockers, which don't have the on-demand whitelisting features and toggles. However, since uBlock Origin is only available as a browser extension, it can only be used with a browser that supports extensions. No browser on iOS is able to support uBlock Origin. Safari 13+ on macOS also no longer supports uBlock Origin due to platform restrictions: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
    - mikehotel 5y ago
      Firefox Focus on iOS blocks 78% with all tracker blocks are enabled, and 62% with the last “Block other content trackers” option disabled. Percentage figures are from test on https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html.
      - commoner 5y ago
        Firefox Focus is a nice browser for certain use cases, but it can't compare to uBlock Origin, which scores 100% on that test for me on a fresh install with default settings (using Firefox on Android and desktop). It's interesting how Firefox Focus on iOS also acts as a Content Blocker for Safari, but I find AdGuard to be more comprehensive on iOS.
        rovr138 5y ago
        Sure you can compare them. It’s 78/100 effective on that test. And unfortunately, on iOS the alternative isn’t ublock origin.
        commoner 5y ago
        Hmm, you're right. AdGuard on Safari also scores 78% on iOS. I guess that's as good as it gets on that platform.
        chrizel 5y ago
        The Brave browser on iOS gets around 90% interestingly.
        chrizel 5y ago
        Vanilla Safari on iOS 15 beta with tracking prevention activated gets 98% - not bad!
        commoner 5y ago
        Brave on iOS only scores 77% for me with the default settings, which includes the "Block cross-site trackers" Shield setting. Do you have some other setting enabled?
        chrizel 5y ago
        Hm, ok - maybe it's because I'm also using Pi-hole in my network.
  - toiletaccount 5y ago
    hey what do you know crapple sucks shit and scroogle F's you in the A while you're asleep. PM me when we're wheeling out the corporate guillotine.
webmobdev 5y ago
On ios you have to use Firefox Focus. But it doesn't do as good a job as Firefox + uBlock Origin.

o10449366 5y ago

For me it's the element rules. Being able to hide every post that contains "____ liked this" on LinkedIn/FB actually makes them tolerable.

toastal 5y ago
I recently did it to hide the social aspects on the GitHub homepage... no explore sidebar, no reactions in the main feed.
- maest 5y ago
  Similarly, disabling the social features on SO was very useful. The "Hot network questions" block to the side is needlessly distracting and adds 0 value.

Macha 5y ago

Yeah, the new Wikia/Fandom design finally drove me to start taking very liberal usage of custom rules

Qi_ 5y ago
I must’ve purged over 50% of visual elements from Fandom wikis with my uBlock filters. It’s outrageous how much garbage is served. I wonder what their UX design meetings look like.
- edoceo 5y ago
  I imagine lots of alcohol.
  - ev1 5y ago
    There are no UI, UX, or devs present, just marketing execs.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  I just browsed Memory Alpha with filters off. Wow. I had no idea it had gotten so bad.
  - brnt 5y ago
    I so miss pre-Wikia Memory Alpha...
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      A site:reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/ search with a plugin to redirect www. to old. if you're not logged in can replicate a lot of what Memory Alpha has from all the discussion. At least until Reddit finishes alienating everyone interested in weird niche discussion in favor of clickbait.
  - account42 5y ago
    Even for areas where there is a community wiki (e.g. uesp, combineoverwiki), Google seems to prefer the Wikia/Fandom version with all the crap on the pages.

defaulty 5y ago

I never realized what this feature did. Thank you! (And thank you to the developers)

chrismorgan 5y ago
Well, the icons are just terrible, utterly insipid and lacking in power. It needs labels rather than icons, and better names for “zapper” and “picker” too (something like “remove elements from this page” versus “block elements from this site”). I’m not sure if browsers apply height limits to these popups, but if not, almost every time there will be oodles of space for full labels and replacing the two single rows of buttons with columns. And even if scrolling is introduced, that’d still be better.
- sundarurfriend 5y ago
  > It needs labels rather than icons At least they now have tooltips - I remember when choosing "Advanced mode" (which you need for a lot of features) just disabled tooltips in the UI, on the theory that advanced users shouldn't need them! I (and likely many others) argued how crazy an assumption that was, that just because we understood how HTML and JS worked, we should remember a bunch of icons and what the dev decided they meant. Thankfully they were willing to listen and change the decision, and the UI is a lot better for it.
  - MegaDeKay 5y ago
    If you have some pull here, it would be really nice to have popups added to the grid in the middle of the dropdown where the colored boxes are. I use these very rarely and can never remember which column of colored boxes do what.
    - sundarurfriend 5y ago
      The top row of those have tooltips too. I can never remember either, and have to check them every time.

hammock 5y ago

How do I use it on mobile? I can't find the download link for android.

josephcsible 5y ago
For what browser? If Chrome, then you're out of luck: mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions. If Firefox, then just open the menu and go to Add-ons.
webmobdev 5y ago
Install Firefox from the Play Store. Then open this link in Firefox and install the supported extensions - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=recommended&sort=random&type=extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=re...
Normille 5y ago
Yandex Browser on Android [which is based on Chrome] supports Chrome extensions. I'm running it with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and a few others. If an extension won't load directly from the Chrome Webstore you can toggle 'Developer Mode' under 'chrome://extensions' and load the downloaded and unpacked CRX directly.
- kunagi7 5y ago
  Kiwi Browser also allows to install Chrome extensions. I keep it as an alternative browser with uBlock and other useful extensions. Also, Vivaldi has a fairly complete adblocker built-in, with custom filter lists and also scores a solid 100% on that test.
  - Normille 5y ago
    I had high hopes for Kiwi Browser but, unfortunately its text-reflow feature has been broken since forever. Yandex Browser is the only one available on Android that ticks both those 'must have' boxes for me: full support for extensions and a functional text-reflow feature --without which a huge swathe of the web is unreadable for me, due to microscopic text sizes. I know other browsers have their own built-in ad-blockers, but I prefer to use uBlock Origin across all my devices so, when I setup a new one, I can just import my existing rules & settings, built up and tweaked over many years, rather than start from scratch.

sails 5y ago

This feature is so good but so confusing to use, really the best thing about ublock beyond the ad-blocking. I use very extensively, I almost wish it was a standalone tool, so that the filtering aspects could be shared more easily.

lordnacho 5y ago

This is one of the best hidden features of uBlock. While we're on the topic, how does one effectively block facebook ads? I've got simple rules to chop the ads from LinkedIn, but if you do an inspect on FB, they've been very sneaky about how the elements are set up, eg it doesn't just say "Sponsored" in a string, it's a weird mash that ends up looking like that when rendered but hard to nail down. Then again I'm more of a backend dev, so maybe that's why I don't know what to do.

danuker 5y ago
> weird mash that ends up looking like that when rendered but hard to nail down. It is designed to be very hard to select automatically. It is also why I don't use Facebook more than 5 minutes a week - it is among the only services where ads annoy me.
UncleSlacky 5y ago
FB Purity seems to do a good job: https://www.fbpurity.com https://www.fbpurity.com
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Doesn't remove sponsored posts for me.
  - UncleSlacky 5y ago
    I found this on their FAQ page: https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm > *Important News*: 4th September 2021: Sponsored Posts Issue: It seems Facebook have just changed their code for Sponsored Posts, so some people have started seeing Sponsored Posts in their Newsfeed again, I am working on fixing this, please be patient, thanks! *UPDATE* It seems for some people the sponsored posts are only getting through if your Newsfeed is set to "Top Posts", if you switch to "Most Recent", the Sponsored Posts should in theory disappear. The good news is that FBP has an option to keep you permanently on the "Most Recent" feed when you visit the Newsfeed, so that could possibly solve the issue for now, give it a try and let me know if that solves it for you. In the meantime, I will continue working on a more robust fix.

jmrm 5y ago

It also blocks the paywall in some webs that aren't too well designed (the content is loaded under a frame that hide it). It's great to have such a good tool.

efreak 5y ago

The eye dropper is also quite useful for writing userscripts and userstyles directly on Android; I tap the element, hit preview to see what happens (margins, padding, border collapse, etc), type a note at the end of the element name and sirens it to the clipboard, then move on. Back in the editor, I just paste my notes from the clipboard, and I can quickly write up a stylesheet override for a dynamic webpage without resorting to debugging on my desktop. I don't understand why Firefox mobile can't be used to debug another Firefox mobile, I I'd love it if I could open devtools off to the side and see a live tree view instead of manually prefixing the URL with `view-source:` only to find out the html doesn't actually include any content.