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Can anyone explain why there isn't a robust and thriving adblocking solution available at the router or OS level? Why are we all forced to grasp at the straws o
by Solvency 3y ago
Can anyone explain why there isn't a robust and thriving adblocking solution available at the router or OS level? Why are we all forced to grasp at the straws of the browser?
- Dwedit 3y agoBecause you would need to Man-in-the-middle HTTPS.
- timeagain 3y agoThere is in the sense that there are robust black lists you can put in your `/etc/hosts` file, but that only blocks known senders of advertisements. But how can your OS know that this `div` is an ad and that one is content? Since the browser is the authority on what is rendered on a web page, it makes sense that it is the tool that should be utilized to block/hide rendered elements.
- Forgeties79 3y agoMy guess is less variety on browsers than routers but no clue with OS’s.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoAlso, most consumers don't know how to configure their router. Most can figure out how to install an ad blocker.
- Forgeties79 3y agoYeah, especially since ones like unlock origin are simple browser extensions that anyone can install in a few seconds. Hell it’s so simple I hesitate to even describe it as “installing”
- snailmailman 3y agoDNS-based solutions do this somewhat. But nearly all web traffic is encrypted. And without being able to inspect the traffic more closely ad block is quite limited. So DNS blocking or router firewalls have trouble. Pihole can’t block YouTube ads. The ads still come from the same domain as the video. Extensions have access to the live page and can do much more inspection, with finer control over the page. (Manifest V3 limits this somewhat) On iOS it can kinda happen at the “OS” level as there is only one web browser. But that has its own drawbacks. The only adblocks are those the AppStore allows.
- asylteltine 3y agoBecause most blocking is removing DOM elements and you can’t do this outside a browser
- Solvency 3y agoBut the network still has to transfer the contents from some source into that DOM so I'm unclear why it's so hard to nix that inbound data.
- asylteltine 3y agoBecause it’s all encrypted and your router can’t decrypt it. That’s for your benefit
- Manuel_D 3y agoIf the ads are hosted from the same domain or even same IP as the main web content, this is hard to do. Done effectively, it's not possible to distinguish ads from the wanted content without inspecting the web content.
- notatoad 3y agoAdGuard is pretty good. but it's not free, and the browser extensions are.
- sgent 3y agoWith encrypted DNS queries becoming more popular, it is impossible to block something at the router level without decrypting the packets which bring up more privacy concerns.