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Chrome’s new ad-blocker-limiting extension platform will launch in 2023

31 points by type0 4y ago

comfypotato 4y ago
Will be interesting to track the growth of other browsers when this launches. I personally just switched to Firefox because Chrome stops pihole from working correctly.
- ralphc 4y ago
  How does Chrome do that, I thought pihole worked through DNS?
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Chrome uses its own DNS servers. It's a setting that can be turned off. I'm migrating to Firefox in case it becomes permanent (also just on the principle on not liking this nonsense game about marketing advertising modifications as security improvements). https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-doesnt-seem-to-work-if-using-google-chrome/55015 https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-doesnt-seem-to-work-...
  - pridkett 4y ago
    An increasing number of devices ship with hard coded DNS servers - usually 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. You need more than PiHole in those situations as you also need to transparently redirect DNS to PiHole/AdGuard Home. But that’s not enough by itself. Things can still use DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS. Even Firefox will try this unless configured otherwise. You can add the canary domain for well behaved apps to say don’t use those protocols, but poorly/maliciously configured apps can still ignore that. So then you’re in an arms race with blocking publicly known DNS over HTTPS servers. You can do it, but it’s tiring. But hey, I’ve learned a lot more about iptables and how to manage them on my UDM Pro as a result.
    - mrkramer 4y ago
      This blog post[0] explains how to bypass hardcoded DNS servers with PiHole. It might help those who don't know how to do it. Didn't test it personally, I still use uBlock Origin. [0] https://labzilla.io/blog/force-dns-pihole https://labzilla.io/blog/force-dns-pihole
    - comfypotato 4y ago
      This was an informative comment. Thanks. Sounds like I was over-zealous switching from Chrome because of DoH (seeing as even Firefox does it by default). Am I correct that disabling DoH (in Firefox) with a PiHole is a safe way to browse ad free?
Larrikin 4y ago
I hope that UBlock lite will take this rare opportunity to aggressively let the public know the real version of the plugin works properly on Firefox wherever they can. Ideally replacing all of those banners on Google sites saying to switch to chrome to say to switch to Firefox for proper ad blocking
- anaganisk 4y ago
  On the contrary, I think people who use uBlock are knowledgeable in tech so they know the play already. I’ve yet to see people who are not into tech use it at all, so I don’t think it helps. Adguard or ABP oth could have more impact if they do it.
jug 4y ago
I already moved from Edge to Firefox due to this after a long break from it (roughly the Firefox Quantum intro days). I was surprised by how fast and performant it felt. It’s going to be easy to stay this time, and feel good to once more support this absolutely vital open source browser for any kind of rendering engine competition other than the duopoly. Also, even before this, I recall Firefox has a more liberal extension API for adblockers like uBlock Origin to do their jobs as well as possible. As for Chromium — The situation for Chrome is obvious, Edge sounds like V2 manifests may be turned on by policies but that really has an air of “we’re gonna stop supporting them too”, Brave has custom adblocking code, Vivaldi’s and Opera’s future here is unknown to me. But I think Firefox is very important to support.

31 points by type0 4y ago

Will be interesting to track the growth of other browsers when this launches. I personally just switched to Firefox because Chrome stops pihole from working correctly.

ralphc 4y ago
How does Chrome do that, I thought pihole worked through DNS?
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Chrome uses its own DNS servers. It's a setting that can be turned off. I'm migrating to Firefox in case it becomes permanent (also just on the principle on not liking this nonsense game about marketing advertising modifications as security improvements). https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-doesnt-seem-to-work-if-using-google-chrome/55015 https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-doesnt-seem-to-work-...
- pridkett 4y ago
  An increasing number of devices ship with hard coded DNS servers - usually 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. You need more than PiHole in those situations as you also need to transparently redirect DNS to PiHole/AdGuard Home. But that’s not enough by itself. Things can still use DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS. Even Firefox will try this unless configured otherwise. You can add the canary domain for well behaved apps to say don’t use those protocols, but poorly/maliciously configured apps can still ignore that. So then you’re in an arms race with blocking publicly known DNS over HTTPS servers. You can do it, but it’s tiring. But hey, I’ve learned a lot more about iptables and how to manage them on my UDM Pro as a result.
  - mrkramer 4y ago
    This blog post[0] explains how to bypass hardcoded DNS servers with PiHole. It might help those who don't know how to do it. Didn't test it personally, I still use uBlock Origin. [0] https://labzilla.io/blog/force-dns-pihole https://labzilla.io/blog/force-dns-pihole
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    This was an informative comment. Thanks. Sounds like I was over-zealous switching from Chrome because of DoH (seeing as even Firefox does it by default). Am I correct that disabling DoH (in Firefox) with a PiHole is a safe way to browse ad free?

Larrikin 4y ago

I hope that UBlock lite will take this rare opportunity to aggressively let the public know the real version of the plugin works properly on Firefox wherever they can. Ideally replacing all of those banners on Google sites saying to switch to chrome to say to switch to Firefox for proper ad blocking

anaganisk 4y ago
On the contrary, I think people who use uBlock are knowledgeable in tech so they know the play already. I’ve yet to see people who are not into tech use it at all, so I don’t think it helps. Adguard or ABP oth could have more impact if they do it.

jug 4y ago

I already moved from Edge to Firefox due to this after a long break from it (roughly the Firefox Quantum intro days). I was surprised by how fast and performant it felt. It’s going to be easy to stay this time, and feel good to once more support this absolutely vital open source browser for any kind of rendering engine competition other than the duopoly. Also, even before this, I recall Firefox has a more liberal extension API for adblockers like uBlock Origin to do their jobs as well as possible. As for Chromium — The situation for Chrome is obvious, Edge sounds like V2 manifests may be turned on by policies but that really has an air of “we’re gonna stop supporting them too”, Brave has custom adblocking code, Vivaldi’s and Opera’s future here is unknown to me. But I think Firefox is very important to support.