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Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "a

Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "acceptable ads" program) for the open-source and user-focused uBlock Origin (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock). Also, if you haven't tried Firefox since the quantum days come back and give it another try.

NmAmDa 5y ago
uBlock origin put Ghostery lite in list of good replacement for people on safari so I'm confused now. https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  uBlock for Safari is run by some mostly unrelated third party, and what you linked specifically is an issue by "ghost".
  - DHowett 5y ago
    “ghost” is GitHub’s deleted user placeholder, not somebody affiliated with Ghostery.
    - cmeacham98 5y ago
      I wasn't intending to imply it is (tbh I internalized that as common knowledge), my intended point is the issue with this Ghostery recommendation was created by some random unknown and presumably unrelated Github user.
      - julius_deane 5y ago
        impact > intent You are not being attacked by parent. Parent is merely pointing out the difference so other users are aware of it. You could just thank them for the clarification and move on.
  - NmAmDa 5y ago
    I know, the link I refer to is original uBlock origin repo talking about that and suggest to use couple of alternative where Ghostery lite is one of them. And was approved and even pinned.
invalidname 5y ago
Firefox is truly amazing today. I keep a chrome instance for Google docs which seems to work better there, the rest I do in FF which is better for everything else...
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I just tried Chrome after jumping on FireFox bandwagon 2 years ago and honestly, I was not impressed. Chrome feels “jittery” while Firefox feels “snappy”. It’s the way a page loads. Hard to describe. Firefox is the top choice for me. I recommend it properly and not just for the sake of supporting Firefox. That said, please support Firefox. We should not be allowing Big Tech behemoths from taking away the window into the internet. If I were to complain to Firefox team - please stop adding shit, I don’t want Pocket, I don’t want anything but just the way it currently is. Just allow us to browse. Fast.
  - __del__ 5y ago
    I'm curious about the subjective jittery v. snappy experience you describe. Perhaps Chrome shows more intermittent reflows so you observe more of the page rendering as it's taking place? Can you describe it in more detail? I presume Firefox is doing something right but what might it be?
  - fastball 5y ago
    I have the opposite experience. Any non-chromium (i.e. non-V8) browser feels sluggish on JS-heavy workloads.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    > * I just tried Chrome after jumping on FireFox bandwagon 2 years ago and honestly, I was not impressed. Chrome feels “jittery” while Firefox feels “snappy”. It’s the way a page loads. Hard to describe.* I am on a pretty powerful Mac and it's exactly the opposite, sadly. Firefox just... stutters. When downloading pages, when interacting with pages, it's there and it's super annoying. Chrome in the meantime is just absolutely instant no matter what I do. Doesn't help me wanting to stick with Firefox. :(
whakim 5y ago
I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  Static pictures or text, no JS, and nothing more is such a big change for current ads people they can't even comprehend it.
- sdfjkl 5y ago
  Advertising shits in your head.
- WoahNoun 5y ago
  For example, the text advertisements on the side of Advent of Code. It wouldn't feel right to block those.
- ahelwer 5y ago
  Then let people who believe that go stare at ads. Submitting yourself to manipulation out of a sense of duty to the viability of a business model is deeply weird. Alternatively, if you believe those ads don't affect you then why does it matter whether they're displayed in your browser or not?
  - drdeca 5y ago
    I do see potential value in being informed by an ad of a type of product I didn’t know existed. The type of ads I strongly dislike for reasons beyond like, breaking pages and tracking, are ones that repeatedly show for something which I already know exists in order to promote a brand. If someone wants to put up an ad for “we make any bronze parts”, well, I looked to see if any of them were cheap enough to get as a gag (none of them were, but still). If a company wants to remind me over and over of their company name that everyone is already familiar with, that is irritating.
    - 5y ago
fhd2 5y ago
Another point for Firefox over all the other Chromium based ones: Chromium is actively working on stifling extensions, especially ad and tracking blockers, dubiously so in the name of privacy and security of all things: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/ (primarily the deprecation of webRequest in favour of the severely, deliberately limited declarativeNetRequest). While I suppose Brave with its integrated ad blocking is going to keep it working, I believe it will be wildly unsustainable for Chromium based browsers to keep the V2 APIs for extensions amidst the torrent of upstream changes coming from Chromium. So the only functioning blockers these browsers are probably going to have are built in ones - and only if they care enough.
tecoholic 5y ago
Hi, author here. Thanks for the suggestions. 1. I haven't followed Ghostery, AdBlock+ devs since I started using Brave. Sad to learn of their status. I will look at uBlock Origin. 2. Firefox was a memory and CPU hog and I always usef it as a test browser or a secondary browser, until Brave. Then I started using Chrome as secondary and dropped Firefox. I will give Firefox another try. Thanks again.
- b8 5y ago
  You could try out GNU IceCat, it's the FLOSS version of Firefox. Normal FireFox seems to have memory leaks or something that would use a lot of cpu/ram.
zwayhowder 5y ago
I want to use Firefox as my daily driver, but the inability to remap the keyboard shortcuts for tabs prevent me using it. On Linux Firefox maps Alt+# to tabs. I have two problems with that. Firstly on Windows Firefox uses the Control key, so now I have to remember a different shortcut for my work PC vs my gaming PC. Secondly I run i3wm and alt is my mod key.
- RMPR 5y ago
  > Secondly I run i3wm and alt is my mod key. Out of curiosity, why do you use alt instead of super?
chrmod 5y ago
Disclaimer: I work for Ghostery. I respond to protect my own name, not my employer. Ghostery is not selling user data. Let me point out a few facts: All browser-side code is open source https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension and https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-dnr-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-dnr-extension. Yes, Ghostery has a subscription based business model and that another reason to great care in protecting users privacy. Take a look on how we use blind tokens to authenticate subscribed users while searching on glowstery.com https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-search-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-search-extension (notice that even when you are a subscribed user there is no session cookie so queries cannot be linked). Hope this sheds some light on the accusation. If that’s not enough, I do sincerely recommend uBlock Origin or AdGuard on Apple’s platform.
- bmn__ 5y ago
  > Let me point out a few facts: Ohhhh, let me too! "Ghostery makes money by tracking the trackers while blocking them and selling data about third party trackers, which it calls Ghostrank." "Ghostery calls it Consumer Messaging Platform, which allows the company to message users directly in the web browser. According to Ghostery, it will be used for product announcements and promotions. What makes this problematic is that it is enabled by default." You aren't fooling anyone.
- freediver 5y ago
  > All browser-side code is open source Indirectly relevant - It is not the client source code that is ever the issue. It is the server side code and the business model that matters. Client can be even closed source, if it is zero-telemetry. There is no danger for user privacy there. But if the client is not zero-telemetry, and is phoning home, at the very least private information like IP address will be transferred and we have no way of knowing what is done with it. The original post talks exactly about the problem with dependency on the server side which for a browser (and an ad blocker for that matter ) should ideally be zero with the option to opt-in for things like updates.
pdimitar 5y ago
What about PrivacyBadger and Disconnect? Are they even needed at this point? I have a PiHole with a fairly huge block list (~1.2M entries) and uBlock Origin and I keep wondering if I stay only with them, will it be enough?
- sharps1 5y ago
  Pi-Hole and uBO are enough by themselves. > To benefit from uBlock Origin's higher efficiency, it's advised that you don't use other content blockers at the same time (such as Adblock Plus, AdBlock). uBlock Origin will do as well or better than most popular ad blockers. Other blockers can also prevent uBlock Origin's privacy or anti-blocker-defusing features from working properly. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Thank you. Uninstalled everything else, let's see how it goes.

NmAmDa 5y ago

uBlock origin put Ghostery lite in list of good replacement for people on safari so I'm confused now. https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158

cmeacham98 5y ago
uBlock for Safari is run by some mostly unrelated third party, and what you linked specifically is an issue by "ghost".
- DHowett 5y ago
  “ghost” is GitHub’s deleted user placeholder, not somebody affiliated with Ghostery.
  - cmeacham98 5y ago
    I wasn't intending to imply it is (tbh I internalized that as common knowledge), my intended point is the issue with this Ghostery recommendation was created by some random unknown and presumably unrelated Github user.
    - julius_deane 5y ago
      impact > intent You are not being attacked by parent. Parent is merely pointing out the difference so other users are aware of it. You could just thank them for the clarification and move on.
- NmAmDa 5y ago
  I know, the link I refer to is original uBlock origin repo talking about that and suggest to use couple of alternative where Ghostery lite is one of them. And was approved and even pinned.

invalidname 5y ago

Firefox is truly amazing today. I keep a chrome instance for Google docs which seems to work better there, the rest I do in FF which is better for everything else...

systemvoltage 5y ago
I just tried Chrome after jumping on FireFox bandwagon 2 years ago and honestly, I was not impressed. Chrome feels “jittery” while Firefox feels “snappy”. It’s the way a page loads. Hard to describe. Firefox is the top choice for me. I recommend it properly and not just for the sake of supporting Firefox. That said, please support Firefox. We should not be allowing Big Tech behemoths from taking away the window into the internet. If I were to complain to Firefox team - please stop adding shit, I don’t want Pocket, I don’t want anything but just the way it currently is. Just allow us to browse. Fast.
- __del__ 5y ago
  I'm curious about the subjective jittery v. snappy experience you describe. Perhaps Chrome shows more intermittent reflows so you observe more of the page rendering as it's taking place? Can you describe it in more detail? I presume Firefox is doing something right but what might it be?
- fastball 5y ago
  I have the opposite experience. Any non-chromium (i.e. non-V8) browser feels sluggish on JS-heavy workloads.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  > * I just tried Chrome after jumping on FireFox bandwagon 2 years ago and honestly, I was not impressed. Chrome feels “jittery” while Firefox feels “snappy”. It’s the way a page loads. Hard to describe.* I am on a pretty powerful Mac and it's exactly the opposite, sadly. Firefox just... stutters. When downloading pages, when interacting with pages, it's there and it's super annoying. Chrome in the meantime is just absolutely instant no matter what I do. Doesn't help me wanting to stick with Firefox. :(

whakim 5y ago

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

pmlnr 5y ago
Static pictures or text, no JS, and nothing more is such a big change for current ads people they can't even comprehend it.
sdfjkl 5y ago
Advertising shits in your head.
WoahNoun 5y ago
For example, the text advertisements on the side of Advent of Code. It wouldn't feel right to block those.
ahelwer 5y ago
Then let people who believe that go stare at ads. Submitting yourself to manipulation out of a sense of duty to the viability of a business model is deeply weird. Alternatively, if you believe those ads don't affect you then why does it matter whether they're displayed in your browser or not?
- drdeca 5y ago
  I do see potential value in being informed by an ad of a type of product I didn’t know existed. The type of ads I strongly dislike for reasons beyond like, breaking pages and tracking, are ones that repeatedly show for something which I already know exists in order to promote a brand. If someone wants to put up an ad for “we make any bronze parts”, well, I looked to see if any of them were cheap enough to get as a gag (none of them were, but still). If a company wants to remind me over and over of their company name that everyone is already familiar with, that is irritating.
  - 5y ago

fhd2 5y ago

Another point for Firefox over all the other Chromium based ones: Chromium is actively working on stifling extensions, especially ad and tracking blockers, dubiously so in the name of privacy and security of all things: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/ (primarily the deprecation of webRequest in favour of the severely, deliberately limited declarativeNetRequest). While I suppose Brave with its integrated ad blocking is going to keep it working, I believe it will be wildly unsustainable for Chromium based browsers to keep the V2 APIs for extensions amidst the torrent of upstream changes coming from Chromium. So the only functioning blockers these browsers are probably going to have are built in ones - and only if they care enough.

tecoholic 5y ago

Hi, author here. Thanks for the suggestions. 1. I haven't followed Ghostery, AdBlock+ devs since I started using Brave. Sad to learn of their status. I will look at uBlock Origin. 2. Firefox was a memory and CPU hog and I always usef it as a test browser or a secondary browser, until Brave. Then I started using Chrome as secondary and dropped Firefox. I will give Firefox another try. Thanks again.

b8 5y ago
You could try out GNU IceCat, it's the FLOSS version of Firefox. Normal FireFox seems to have memory leaks or something that would use a lot of cpu/ram.

zwayhowder 5y ago

I want to use Firefox as my daily driver, but the inability to remap the keyboard shortcuts for tabs prevent me using it. On Linux Firefox maps Alt+# to tabs. I have two problems with that. Firstly on Windows Firefox uses the Control key, so now I have to remember a different shortcut for my work PC vs my gaming PC. Secondly I run i3wm and alt is my mod key.

RMPR 5y ago
> Secondly I run i3wm and alt is my mod key. Out of curiosity, why do you use alt instead of super?

chrmod 5y ago

Disclaimer: I work for Ghostery. I respond to protect my own name, not my employer. Ghostery is not selling user data. Let me point out a few facts: All browser-side code is open source https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension and https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-dnr-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-dnr-extension. Yes, Ghostery has a subscription based business model and that another reason to great care in protecting users privacy. Take a look on how we use blind tokens to authenticate subscribed users while searching on glowstery.com https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-search-extension https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-search-extension (notice that even when you are a subscribed user there is no session cookie so queries cannot be linked). Hope this sheds some light on the accusation. If that’s not enough, I do sincerely recommend uBlock Origin or AdGuard on Apple’s platform.

bmn__ 5y ago
> Let me point out a few facts: Ohhhh, let me too! "Ghostery makes money by tracking the trackers while blocking them and selling data about third party trackers, which it calls Ghostrank." "Ghostery calls it Consumer Messaging Platform, which allows the company to message users directly in the web browser. According to Ghostery, it will be used for product announcements and promotions. What makes this problematic is that it is enabled by default." You aren't fooling anyone.
freediver 5y ago
> All browser-side code is open source Indirectly relevant - It is not the client source code that is ever the issue. It is the server side code and the business model that matters. Client can be even closed source, if it is zero-telemetry. There is no danger for user privacy there. But if the client is not zero-telemetry, and is phoning home, at the very least private information like IP address will be transferred and we have no way of knowing what is done with it. The original post talks exactly about the problem with dependency on the server side which for a browser (and an ad blocker for that matter ) should ideally be zero with the option to opt-in for things like updates.

pdimitar 5y ago

What about PrivacyBadger and Disconnect? Are they even needed at this point? I have a PiHole with a fairly huge block list (~1.2M entries) and uBlock Origin and I keep wondering if I stay only with them, will it be enough?

sharps1 5y ago
Pi-Hole and uBO are enough by themselves. > To benefit from uBlock Origin's higher efficiency, it's advised that you don't use other content blockers at the same time (such as Adblock Plus, AdBlock). uBlock Origin will do as well or better than most popular ad blockers. Other blockers can also prevent uBlock Origin's privacy or anti-blocker-defusing features from working properly. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Thank you. Uninstalled everything else, let's see how it goes.