5 ms·

Firefox is also implementing manifest v3, as per article. I think this should push people towards DNS level blocking (I use nextdns, personally)

kome 3y ago
yes but: "What are we doing differently in Firefox? WebRequest One of the most controversial changes of Chrome’s MV3 approach is the removal of blocking WebRequest, which provides a level of power and flexibility that is critical to enabling advanced privacy and content blocking features. Unfortunately, that power has also been used to harm users in a variety of ways. Chrome’s solution in MV3 was to define a more narrowly scoped API (declarativeNetRequest) as a replacement. However, this will limit the capabilities of certain types of privacy extensions without adequate replacement. Mozilla will maintain support for blocking WebRequest in MV3. To maximize compatibility with other browsers, we will also ship support for declarativeNetRequest. We will continue to work with content blockers and other key consumers of this API to identify current and future alternatives where appropriate. Content blocking is one of the most important use cases for extensions, and we are committed to ensuring that Firefox users have access to the best privacy tools available." https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-firefox-recap-next-steps/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-fi...
- stranded22 3y ago
  Excellent, thank you
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
  firefox always copies chrome so they will drop it eventually. Telemetry will say "few people use it" so some asshole(s) will remove it.
  - kome 3y ago
    at this point people use firefox to access to the full power of ublock origins, and that's not gonna change. trust me bro :)
    - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
      "Is this an out of season april fool's joke?" Seriously, are you trying to kid me?
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  Just like they promised to reimplement replacements for XUL extensions almost a decade ago. Still waiting for feature parity.
  - zlg_codes 3y ago
    This event still pisses me off. WebExtensions are straight worse than the XUL we had before. I wish Mozilla would stand up for their vision of the Web instead of being Google's controlled opposition.
bad_user 3y ago
DNS-level blocking is very easy to circumvent. Honestly, the reason most ad-blocking works is because publishers haven't bothered with banning it. And that's because power is concentrated with Big Tech that makes a lot of profit already. E.g., by blocking ads on YouTube, people are now surprised that there's no alternative left, and now Google can milk those users, too.
hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
Is DNS blocking effective because it’s hard to not use DNS at scale, or because advertisers don’t care about the very small portion of users using it? I’m asking because it seems to be a flimsy defence, even if it’s currently working well.
flir 3y ago
That won't work for ads and content being served from the same domain. Isn't the ultimate answer in this arms race a web proxy? I'm wondering about a two-part architecture. One part in the browser that can inspect the rendered page, and another part between the browser and the outside world, that can block individual elements. Basically re-implement the Web Request API as a web proxy. For locked-down environments where you can't run a local proxy, the proxy could be an external service.
kibwen 3y ago
Firefox is implementing it for compatibility with Chrome extensions, but crucially it's not removing support for the old manifest format.
crabbone 3y ago
I just discovered that before I had uBlock Origin, I, apparently, was adding ad website domains to my /etc/hosts by hand :D (And forgot about it, just remembered that I copied my old disk to the one I have now in my laptop, but forgot to add it to fstab). Not a robust solution by any means, but very easy to implement.
Shorel 3y ago
I use a giant hosts file. It makes me hate the work laptop where I can't use it, and any adblocker is just an inferior experience.

kome 3y ago

yes but: "What are we doing differently in Firefox? WebRequest One of the most controversial changes of Chrome’s MV3 approach is the removal of blocking WebRequest, which provides a level of power and flexibility that is critical to enabling advanced privacy and content blocking features. Unfortunately, that power has also been used to harm users in a variety of ways. Chrome’s solution in MV3 was to define a more narrowly scoped API (declarativeNetRequest) as a replacement. However, this will limit the capabilities of certain types of privacy extensions without adequate replacement. Mozilla will maintain support for blocking WebRequest in MV3. To maximize compatibility with other browsers, we will also ship support for declarativeNetRequest. We will continue to work with content blockers and other key consumers of this API to identify current and future alternatives where appropriate. Content blocking is one of the most important use cases for extensions, and we are committed to ensuring that Firefox users have access to the best privacy tools available." https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-firefox-recap-next-steps/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-fi...

stranded22 3y ago
Excellent, thank you
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
firefox always copies chrome so they will drop it eventually. Telemetry will say "few people use it" so some asshole(s) will remove it.
- kome 3y ago
  at this point people use firefox to access to the full power of ublock origins, and that's not gonna change. trust me bro :)
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
    "Is this an out of season april fool's joke?" Seriously, are you trying to kid me?
_Algernon_ 3y ago
Just like they promised to reimplement replacements for XUL extensions almost a decade ago. Still waiting for feature parity.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  This event still pisses me off. WebExtensions are straight worse than the XUL we had before. I wish Mozilla would stand up for their vision of the Web instead of being Google's controlled opposition.

bad_user 3y ago

DNS-level blocking is very easy to circumvent. Honestly, the reason most ad-blocking works is because publishers haven't bothered with banning it. And that's because power is concentrated with Big Tech that makes a lot of profit already. E.g., by blocking ads on YouTube, people are now surprised that there's no alternative left, and now Google can milk those users, too.

hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago

Is DNS blocking effective because it’s hard to not use DNS at scale, or because advertisers don’t care about the very small portion of users using it? I’m asking because it seems to be a flimsy defence, even if it’s currently working well.

flir 3y ago

That won't work for ads and content being served from the same domain. Isn't the ultimate answer in this arms race a web proxy? I'm wondering about a two-part architecture. One part in the browser that can inspect the rendered page, and another part between the browser and the outside world, that can block individual elements. Basically re-implement the Web Request API as a web proxy. For locked-down environments where you can't run a local proxy, the proxy could be an external service.

kibwen 3y ago

Firefox is implementing it for compatibility with Chrome extensions, but crucially it's not removing support for the old manifest format.

crabbone 3y ago

I just discovered that before I had uBlock Origin, I, apparently, was adding ad website domains to my /etc/hosts by hand :D (And forgot about it, just remembered that I copied my old disk to the one I have now in my laptop, but forgot to add it to fstab). Not a robust solution by any means, but very easy to implement.

Shorel 3y ago

I use a giant hosts file. It makes me hate the work laptop where I can't use it, and any adblocker is just an inferior experience.