19 ms·

Firefox for Android with ublock origin makes my mobile web browsing sane again. Highly recommended.

tjpnz 4y ago
Agreed. The mobile web experience could almost be described as life changing when all of the bullshit is removed.
ge0rg 4y ago
I tend to agree, but for a few years now, Firefox has become an ad delivery vehicle for Mozilla. While not as bad as anywhere else on the web, it seems that Mozilla is working hard to destroy their brand value by pushing notification ads for its VPN service to mobile Firefox users (which is a violation of the Google Play ToS), and by using the firefox-was-upgraded page for VPN spam.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I recently had issues with extensions not working after update in Firefox and I recoiled in horror at how bad the experience is without them. It is ridiculous regular people put up with this ( as in, my wife still uses it AFTER she knows I could just make most of it go away ; it make me question people decision making processes ). Still, going back to the main subject. Clearly, it seems google decided that most people do not care enough to actually make decisions to make browsing not painful. I hate this cat and mouse game. It is getting to the point where I really think legal solution is the only one. All techs need to be brought to heel. Hard. In google's defense, it is not just them. The entire ecosystem is broken. When I try to use my bank's website and I use unprotected chromium, it takes extra minute to load everything up on a page. I am running an equivalent of a supercomputer from 90s and I am stunned at the lazy design. If I try to limit it, it stutters and blocks me at every opportunity. And it is one of the national banks in US. Admittedly, some banks do get it mostly right ( kudos to Discover, Chase and Capital ), but I started going to the branch again and each time they ask me if I used their app/website, I say no and tell them why ( which is usually followed by a survey, which I dutifully fill up... mebbe something will finally filter through ).
shostack 4y ago
That plus noscript. Sure I usually have to spend a few seconds enabling various domains to get content to load (thanks JS!) But honestly it's worth it.
- monopoliessuck 4y ago
  You can do this with uBlockOrigin. It provides a drop down for disabling js per domain. I run with js disabled by default just via uBO alone.
jerrygoyal 4y ago
I just benchmarked chrome, edge, and Firefox on my Google pixel and surprisingly Firefox opens quickest. It's kind of impressive that Firefox beat the chrome despite not being the native browser on Android.
hendersoon 4y ago
That only covers the browser; many mobile apps have embedded ads too. DNS-based adblocking is system-wide, even if it isn't as effective in the browser as uBO.
a-dub 4y ago
so if i install a recommended mozilla add-on like ublock origin that has an extreme permission like "access your data for all websites" does that mean that every update to the add-on sees rigorous security review by mozilla before it is pushed? if not, is there some mechanism in place that can reduce worries around software supply chain attacks on a privileged piece of software like this?
2-718-281-828 4y ago
by now i consider ublock origin as more than a tool. it's an integral part of the internet. without it the internet is not usable for me. Raymond Hill deserves no less than a Noble prize or something alike for crafting and maintaining it.
buro9 4y ago
Likewise for NextDNS as Androids Private DNS. This combination of Firefox+uBlock and NextDNS+Private DNS makes Android a pleasurable experience.
- jsmith99 4y ago
  DNS level filtering is the only choice for system level filtering but is less flexible and harder to manually override false positives than application level filtering like ublock. If your browser supports adblock (eg on Android use Firefox or Kiwi) then disable DNS filtering for the browser (ie override the system level filtering) by using browser privacy settings to choose an unfiltered DoH provider like Cloudflare.
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    Is there a way that a vpn could use the dns filtering list to reject any requests to or from ip addresses that resolve to names in the list? Would that simply break everything?
  - aembleton 4y ago
    > If your browser supports adblock then disable DNS filtering for the browser Why would I want to disable DNS filtering? What advantage does that give? UBo is great but does use a small amount of CPU whereas DNS filtering won't use any on my phone - its all on the DNS server. I'd rather filter out as much as possible with DNS filtering and then clean it up with UBo cosmetic filtering and more precise blocking.
- Algent 4y ago
  Does dns filtering work well with android ? I've noticed most of the recent android based handled scanner we got at office refuse to even use our dhcp provided dns including to resolve local address (forcing us to use IP instead of dns for our internal warehouse apps) and complain about "no internet" because 8.8.8.8 is not open.
  - buro9 4y ago
Larrikin 4y ago
The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.
- Yhippa 4y ago
  It's almost like half the membership here are trying to serve you ads and the other half are trying to avoid them.
  - yomkippur 4y ago
    Because their soon-to-be-had wealth is tied to serving ads and the rest of us don't want it.
  - Loughla 4y ago
    I do find the conversations here about ads very interesting. I would assume that some of the people in this forum are actually responsible for what we're literally talking about.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      They come out of the woodwork and try to argue their position occasionally, but get buried in downvotes and slink away The position is usually something along the lines of: - They ignore the incredibly invasive tracking/profiling/security risks involved with downloading and running malicious third-party unvetted ad code - It's stealing if you block ads - Micropayments/subscriptions just don't work well enough
  - manquer 4y ago
    There is probably an overlap too , I mean it is not like people who work for ad networks like Facebook and google want to see ads either
- neonsunset 4y ago
  Just get Adguard it's really good.
gonom 4y ago
Same here, but also using private browsing mode only. Plus the YouTube Vanced app (including YouTube Music) to be rid of the ads there. I try not to use apps where there's a website equivalent, but I also repackaged a couple of them that I like to rid them of the ads, using apktool. My mobile experience is blissfully ad-free. It's a delight and I would never go back to the default experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  Apparently Vanced has been C&D'd so it's only a matter of time before the API changes and it dies. Unsure if there's been a development since then.
  - gonom 4y ago
    It a very unfortunate that Google decided to throw their legal weight, but I suppose predictable. When that day comes, I'll be very tempted to have a crack at modding it myself, if nothing else springs up to replace it.
  - blibble 4y ago
    revanced popped up within about a day
brnt 4y ago
The only downside, and it feels like it's getting larger every year, is speed. You can tell Firefox rendering and js execution is behind on Chromium. On laptops/desktops there is plenty of HW to compensate, but not on phones, is my experience.
- fezfight 4y ago
  It's fine. I don't even notice. It's certainly not enough to warrant seeing ads and sacrificing the free web to google.
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
We're all gonna be so screwed if Firefox dies.
- neop1x 4y ago
  I mainly use Kiwi browser on Android which is Chromium fork with full extension support and DevTools. It is not update very often and I can feel that they are in need of more maintainers but it still works best for me. I stopped using Firefox since they restricted addons and removed about:config
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  Fork the web. I'd be down for a non-commercial / ad hostile design.
  - adrr 4y ago
    And who pays for it?
  - piaste 4y ago
    Sounds like Gemini.
    - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      >In terms of simplicity, the native content type, “gemtext”, is meant to be loaded in a single request, therefore there are no inline images, no iFrames, fonts, scripts or anything else. Good luck replacing the web with request/response markdown. I would figure at the least something that could serve Wikipedia would be a bare minimum.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        It sounds like that can serve wikipedia, just without inline pictures. In fact, the cursory reading suggests that you can even have pictures if they're not in line. I admit that that's a small step down from the current experience, but it might be worth it.
quitit 4y ago
It's incredible how fast websites load with this combination. I recall reading that despite the internet being faster, actual website performance has never really improved meaningfully. Whatever speed gains we've achieved have simply been eaten by larger and more complex tracking scripts. Google themselves are a significant contributor to this problem, for many websites, Google's scripts are the core source of slowness. I don't think it's unreasonable for users to want to reclaim their browsing experience (and bandwidth). In the sample comparison below we can see savings as high as 90% of data and speed boosts of ~1500% - it's insanity. https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/1000166112615714816 https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/1000166112615714816
- broguinn 4y ago
  I recently learned about 'Jevons Paradox': >In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological progress could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption. Which is a criticism, it seems, for any system that values resource attribution over efficiency.
  - fvrghl 4y ago
    Is that basically the same as induced demand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
    - broguinn 4y ago
      I very cursory read seems to say yes. The biggest difference I see is that Jevons paradox is paradoxical because of the intent to increase efficiency (eg. make pages load faster, reduce the amount of coal needed, etc).
- firecall 4y ago
  Since ADSL1 the web has felt much the same. Of course there was flash to deal with rhen too. Now back when we had 56K Modems was when it really was unusable! I don't how sites think i want to read an article and warxh a totally unrelated video at the same time. I'm really starting to miss old style magazines lately. Click bait and fake headlines about the next iphone have ruinwd the web.
alex3305 4y ago
Whenever I try to use Firefox, I always tend to go back to Chrome after a week or so. I'm visually impaired and Firefox just messes up the accessibility on certain (news) websites for me. While on Chrome it's mostly working fine. I guess it's mostly attributed to the website handling accessibility wrong, but using the web is more important to me I guess.
- b0ner_t0ner 4y ago
  Install Stylus for Firefox Android, set your own legible font families, sizes and weights; that's even better than Chrome.
  - alex3305 4y ago
    Thanks for this. I will check it out.
pmontra 4y ago
uBlock is wonderful and makes my browser feel sane but it doesn't do anything for all the other apps. Blockada blocks ads everywhere on my devices. We must use both.
- EastSmith 4y ago
  Or do jot use local apps at all, only web apps (yes on mobile).
1-6 4y ago
When the free and open web starts getting expensive because of hosting costs, it becomes a open ad-laced web.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Over the 30 or so years that web hosting has existed, has it got cheaper or more expensive to host?

Agreed. The mobile web experience could almost be described as life changing when all of the bullshit is removed.

I tend to agree, but for a few years now, Firefox has become an ad delivery vehicle for Mozilla. While not as bad as anywhere else on the web, it seems that Mozilla is working hard to destroy their brand value by pushing notification ads for its VPN service to mobile Firefox users (which is a violation of the Google Play ToS), and by using the firefox-was-upgraded page for VPN spam.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

I recently had issues with extensions not working after update in Firefox and I recoiled in horror at how bad the experience is without them. It is ridiculous regular people put up with this ( as in, my wife still uses it AFTER she knows I could just make most of it go away ; it make me question people decision making processes ). Still, going back to the main subject. Clearly, it seems google decided that most people do not care enough to actually make decisions to make browsing not painful. I hate this cat and mouse game. It is getting to the point where I really think legal solution is the only one. All techs need to be brought to heel. Hard. In google's defense, it is not just them. The entire ecosystem is broken. When I try to use my bank's website and I use unprotected chromium, it takes extra minute to load everything up on a page. I am running an equivalent of a supercomputer from 90s and I am stunned at the lazy design. If I try to limit it, it stutters and blocks me at every opportunity. And it is one of the national banks in US. Admittedly, some banks do get it mostly right ( kudos to Discover, Chase and Capital ), but I started going to the branch again and each time they ask me if I used their app/website, I say no and tell them why ( which is usually followed by a survey, which I dutifully fill up... mebbe something will finally filter through ).

shostack 4y ago

That plus noscript. Sure I usually have to spend a few seconds enabling various domains to get content to load (thanks JS!) But honestly it's worth it.

monopoliessuck 4y ago
You can do this with uBlockOrigin. It provides a drop down for disabling js per domain. I run with js disabled by default just via uBO alone.

jerrygoyal 4y ago

I just benchmarked chrome, edge, and Firefox on my Google pixel and surprisingly Firefox opens quickest. It's kind of impressive that Firefox beat the chrome despite not being the native browser on Android.

hendersoon 4y ago

That only covers the browser; many mobile apps have embedded ads too. DNS-based adblocking is system-wide, even if it isn't as effective in the browser as uBO.

a-dub 4y ago

so if i install a recommended mozilla add-on like ublock origin that has an extreme permission like "access your data for all websites" does that mean that every update to the add-on sees rigorous security review by mozilla before it is pushed? if not, is there some mechanism in place that can reduce worries around software supply chain attacks on a privileged piece of software like this?

2-718-281-828 4y ago

by now i consider ublock origin as more than a tool. it's an integral part of the internet. without it the internet is not usable for me. Raymond Hill deserves no less than a Noble prize or something alike for crafting and maintaining it.

buro9 4y ago

Likewise for NextDNS as Androids Private DNS. This combination of Firefox+uBlock and NextDNS+Private DNS makes Android a pleasurable experience.

jsmith99 4y ago
DNS level filtering is the only choice for system level filtering but is less flexible and harder to manually override false positives than application level filtering like ublock. If your browser supports adblock (eg on Android use Firefox or Kiwi) then disable DNS filtering for the browser (ie override the system level filtering) by using browser privacy settings to choose an unfiltered DoH provider like Cloudflare.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Is there a way that a vpn could use the dns filtering list to reject any requests to or from ip addresses that resolve to names in the list? Would that simply break everything?
- aembleton 4y ago
  > If your browser supports adblock then disable DNS filtering for the browser Why would I want to disable DNS filtering? What advantage does that give? UBo is great but does use a small amount of CPU whereas DNS filtering won't use any on my phone - its all on the DNS server. I'd rather filter out as much as possible with DNS filtering and then clean it up with UBo cosmetic filtering and more precise blocking.
Algent 4y ago
Does dns filtering work well with android ? I've noticed most of the recent android based handled scanner we got at office refuse to even use our dhcp provided dns including to resolve local address (forcing us to use IP instead of dns for our internal warehouse apps) and complain about "no internet" because 8.8.8.8 is not open.
- buro9 4y ago

Larrikin 4y ago

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

Yhippa 4y ago
It's almost like half the membership here are trying to serve you ads and the other half are trying to avoid them.
- yomkippur 4y ago
  Because their soon-to-be-had wealth is tied to serving ads and the rest of us don't want it.
- Loughla 4y ago
  I do find the conversations here about ads very interesting. I would assume that some of the people in this forum are actually responsible for what we're literally talking about.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    They come out of the woodwork and try to argue their position occasionally, but get buried in downvotes and slink away The position is usually something along the lines of: - They ignore the incredibly invasive tracking/profiling/security risks involved with downloading and running malicious third-party unvetted ad code - It's stealing if you block ads - Micropayments/subscriptions just don't work well enough
- manquer 4y ago
  There is probably an overlap too , I mean it is not like people who work for ad networks like Facebook and google want to see ads either
neonsunset 4y ago
Just get Adguard it's really good.

gonom 4y ago

Same here, but also using private browsing mode only. Plus the YouTube Vanced app (including YouTube Music) to be rid of the ads there. I try not to use apps where there's a website equivalent, but I also repackaged a couple of them that I like to rid them of the ads, using apktool. My mobile experience is blissfully ad-free. It's a delight and I would never go back to the default experience.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
Apparently Vanced has been C&D'd so it's only a matter of time before the API changes and it dies. Unsure if there's been a development since then.
- gonom 4y ago
  It a very unfortunate that Google decided to throw their legal weight, but I suppose predictable. When that day comes, I'll be very tempted to have a crack at modding it myself, if nothing else springs up to replace it.
- blibble 4y ago
  revanced popped up within about a day

brnt 4y ago

The only downside, and it feels like it's getting larger every year, is speed. You can tell Firefox rendering and js execution is behind on Chromium. On laptops/desktops there is plenty of HW to compensate, but not on phones, is my experience.

fezfight 4y ago
It's fine. I don't even notice. It's certainly not enough to warrant seeing ads and sacrificing the free web to google.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

We're all gonna be so screwed if Firefox dies.

neop1x 4y ago
I mainly use Kiwi browser on Android which is Chromium fork with full extension support and DevTools. It is not update very often and I can feel that they are in need of more maintainers but it still works best for me. I stopped using Firefox since they restricted addons and removed about:config
washadjeffmad 4y ago
Fork the web. I'd be down for a non-commercial / ad hostile design.
- adrr 4y ago
  And who pays for it?
- piaste 4y ago
  Sounds like Gemini.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    >In terms of simplicity, the native content type, “gemtext”, is meant to be loaded in a single request, therefore there are no inline images, no iFrames, fonts, scripts or anything else. Good luck replacing the web with request/response markdown. I would figure at the least something that could serve Wikipedia would be a bare minimum.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      It sounds like that can serve wikipedia, just without inline pictures. In fact, the cursory reading suggests that you can even have pictures if they're not in line. I admit that that's a small step down from the current experience, but it might be worth it.

quitit 4y ago

It's incredible how fast websites load with this combination. I recall reading that despite the internet being faster, actual website performance has never really improved meaningfully. Whatever speed gains we've achieved have simply been eaten by larger and more complex tracking scripts. Google themselves are a significant contributor to this problem, for many websites, Google's scripts are the core source of slowness. I don't think it's unreasonable for users to want to reclaim their browsing experience (and bandwidth). In the sample comparison below we can see savings as high as 90% of data and speed boosts of ~1500% - it's insanity. https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/1000166112615714816 https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/1000166112615714816

broguinn 4y ago
I recently learned about 'Jevons Paradox': >In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological progress could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption. Which is a criticism, it seems, for any system that values resource attribution over efficiency.
- fvrghl 4y ago
  Is that basically the same as induced demand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
  - broguinn 4y ago
    I very cursory read seems to say yes. The biggest difference I see is that Jevons paradox is paradoxical because of the intent to increase efficiency (eg. make pages load faster, reduce the amount of coal needed, etc).
firecall 4y ago
Since ADSL1 the web has felt much the same. Of course there was flash to deal with rhen too. Now back when we had 56K Modems was when it really was unusable! I don't how sites think i want to read an article and warxh a totally unrelated video at the same time. I'm really starting to miss old style magazines lately. Click bait and fake headlines about the next iphone have ruinwd the web.

alex3305 4y ago

Whenever I try to use Firefox, I always tend to go back to Chrome after a week or so. I'm visually impaired and Firefox just messes up the accessibility on certain (news) websites for me. While on Chrome it's mostly working fine. I guess it's mostly attributed to the website handling accessibility wrong, but using the web is more important to me I guess.

b0ner_t0ner 4y ago
Install Stylus for Firefox Android, set your own legible font families, sizes and weights; that's even better than Chrome.
- alex3305 4y ago
  Thanks for this. I will check it out.

pmontra 4y ago

uBlock is wonderful and makes my browser feel sane but it doesn't do anything for all the other apps. Blockada blocks ads everywhere on my devices. We must use both.

EastSmith 4y ago
Or do jot use local apps at all, only web apps (yes on mobile).

1-6 4y ago

When the free and open web starts getting expensive because of hosting costs, it becomes a open ad-laced web.

pjc50 4y ago
Over the 30 or so years that web hosting has existed, has it got cheaper or more expensive to host?