7 ms·

Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

31 points by LinuxBender 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throw_pm23 2y ago
At this point I'm so sick of ads and so used to browsing without them, that I think if it comes to choosing, then I'll just give up on much of the internet instead of viewing it with ads.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  Well we can always go back to gopher: https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi And/or start using Gemini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol) https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi I have moved my site to gopher/gemini. It is far easier to maintain and there are a lot of interesting sites sitting there. Just a few: * gemini://sdf.org * gemini://gem.sdf.org/ * gopher://sdf.org * gopher://magical.fish * gopher://gopher.floodgap.com
  - damnesian 2y ago
    This is really interesting! I remember gopher from back in the day- I didn't know it still existed even as a protocol. Wouldn't that be an interesting development, for web browsing shifting to a "have-to" paradigm (for work, for other utilitatarian purposes) from a "want-to" paradigm. Would spam dry up if the web were no longer populated by the masses merely whiling away idle time?
- Yeul 2y ago
  Yes I've given up on YouTube because of ads. Got tired of fixing Revanced.
CalRobert 2y ago
At this point it’s hard to have much sympathy when Firefox is literally right there, for free.
- aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
  > Gorhill reports on GitHub that an automated code review by Mozilla flagged problems with uBlock Origin Lite. As a result, he has pulled the add-on from Mozilla's extensions site. The extension's former page now just says "Oops! We can't find that page". You can still install it direct from GitHub, though. I genuinely think one of the biggest problems in digital society is people being addicted to reading headlines without doing the boring work of reading the article.
  - miloignis 2y ago
    I think GP meant that there's a big difference between Mozilla flagging the less-powerful uBlock as a mistake and Google intentionally deprecating the entire mechanism that the more-powerful uBlock depends on, and that you can continue to use the original and more powerful version of uBlock on Firefox for the foreseeable future. Thus, Firefox should be the clear choice for people who want to block ads. That view is entirely consistent with reading the article, as in-fact the article points this out.
    - mossTechnician 2y ago
      Mozilla is still the better company producing the better browser, in general, but as The Register says, it is now an ad company too. And the uBO Lite flagging caused more developers to confirm the difficulty of the review process and the minimal value of publishing to the Firefox store. Phrases like "useless time sink expensive", "a real nightmare to work with" and "we just decided to give up" (from three different devs) stand out to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41710183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41710183
kwar13 2y ago
Pihole + ublock origin and you have made your browsing experience leagues better. Chrome phasing out Manifest v2 will reignite Firefox transition for many.
- everybodyknows 2y ago
  Do you really mean "ublock" rather than Ublock Origin? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin
  - kwar13 2y ago
    ublock origin as you've linked.
- stemlord 2y ago
  What does pihole block that ublock doesn't?
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Every single thing that isn't in your browser. App ads, all the trackers from Netflix, Plex, Sonos, etc.
    - 112233 2y ago
      You think it does, or you know it does? If the later, where can I read more about it? Because, e.g., Apple has official support for allowing apps to easily use DoH/DoT for their connections: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10047/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10047/ I would be mighty surprised if this was the only such mechanism
      - Larrikin 2y ago
        I know for a fact it does. I can view the logs in AdGuard Plus, the only time I see an ad in Words With Friends or Flipboard on my iPad is when I'm off my Tailscale VPN (which goes through AGP). Apps that serve their ads directly, like YouTube, are not blocked sadly. But there are multiple workaround apps for that on Android atleast. Also some apps don't work with the tracking blocked, like Fox Sports, but I just whitelist the minimum amount needed on a per device basis.
visch 2y ago
Will there be any good chromium alternatives that allow Ublock to continue working? Or do we have to go to Firefox?
- orphea 2y ago
  Brave perhaps. But even they are going to support MV2 only as long its code remains in Chromium repo, I think.
- Gemdation 2y ago
  I'd like to remind everyone that you can still block ads with such Chromium browsers that are deprecating Manifest V3. Extensions include AdGuard and uBlock Origin Lite. What this changes is that (adblocking) extensions are losing some permissions (like manually picking out elements to block, web requests to update the block lists, etc).
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Why do you feel the need to remind people about a poor alternative?
    - Gemdation 2y ago
      I feel the need to correct a misconception, of course. Yes I am aware of the Firefox and uBlock Origin combo.
underseacables 2y ago
In the never ending war, the people will build better mechanisms for blocking and hiding advertising.
jmclnx 2y ago
>So, if you use Chrome, or a Chrome-based browser Seems Mozilla may have an opening in browser market share, if they allow add blocking extensions. But how long before sites start blocking Firefox ? Already on some sites have issues when people are using a VPN. Yes, I did try browsing with out add blockers, and the experience was terrible. Some "mainstream" sites you would think would know better had multiple popups. So blocker on. I would not mind ads as long as they were not intrusive, but seems it is getting worse and worse.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Manifest v2 → v3 isn't really about allowing or disallowing adblockers. https://textslashplain.com/2024/10/13/content-blocking-in-manifest-v3/ https://textslashplain.com/2024/10/13/content-blocking-in-ma... has a 12-line ad blocker that's pretty effective against Google's own ads. Ad blockers suffer more or less by accident. v2 was too easy to use for evil extensions.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Skeptical readers will note that this trivial approach blocks one type of Google’s ads, but not every type of Google ads. And that’s certainly true. And then proceeds to sweep it under some nostalgy. Nice try ;) To learn what something is about, learn what it does to money. Subj does good to money, so it is for that. Extension security is a lateral positive effect used for marketing. If it was important, MV2 would get upgraded soon after or even before its release. They didn’t care for all these years, only now it crossed their mind. Sure, sure. And they won’t include the most important project on the web into the standard suite. “No, it’s for everyone, we can’t make exceptions and we’ll remove the page access functionality for other browsers cause that’s uhm… un… unsustainable! Such an accident, ad blocking was so good.”. That’s a quantum law of bigcorps, there’s nothing under the money layer. Everything beyond money is just an interpretation and a side effect.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    The fundamental problem is that centralizing Google (née Doubleclick) considers well-loved libre software and lower-tier surveillance industry malware to be equivalently worthy of trust. It's a reasonable goal to keep Grandma from installing no-name extension #837 (bundled with bottom-market surveillance malware) in spite of herself. But projects like UBO and syncthing have reputations that frankly deserve more trust than Google, itself a top-market player in the surveillance industry.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
g19205 2y ago
I stopped installing adblockers, instead I don't interact with sites with heavy ads. in fact I didn't read op, because there's like a dozen of ads on that theregister page. I realized that I don't lose much. Danny O'Brien coined the term "hinternet", the bad neighborhoods of the internet that normal, non techie people are forced to interact with (this was back when such a distinction still made sense). a lot of internet is hinternet now, even more so than before, and it's almost liberating to aggressively reject it. (I'm not going full Richard Stallman about it, sometimes I'll suffer the ads for content, I throw many articles into archive.is, which only shows one ad at the bottom, and I think it's worthwhile to support them, etc.)
- tzs 2y ago
  > in fact I didn't read op, because there's like a dozen of ads on that theregister page Huh? Unless they are serving you a vastly different page than they serve me that's not the case. UBlock Origin blocks 4 things right away, 3 of which seem to be ads and the logging or analytics. Then sitting on the page over the next few minutes that rises to 7, with the new ones all seeming to be logging or analytics. Refreshing the page several times to see different ads, they were always either short banners that spanned the page or a square in the middle of the column about 2/3 of the column width. Most of the time they were not animated. The only animated ones I saw just had an animated fade in which lasted maybe half a second and then it was static.
  - g19205 2y ago
    I overexagerated, it feels like dozen of ads by the real estate they take up. you're technically and precisely correct by your definition. I just don't go to most news paper and magazine websites.
- thiht 2y ago
  > I stopped installing adblockers, instead I don't interact with sites with heavy ads Or, you know, just install an adblocker. I have no idea why people would voluntarily not install an adblocker today, you’re just making your life more difficult for no valid reason. No matter how you justify it, your experience without an adblocker is strictly worse than my experience with an adblocker. You’re rejecting less by allowing some ads to get through than rejecting all ads in bulk.
jeffwask 2y ago
Excellent news, we should see a rapid revitalization of third-party browsers. Allowing the ad delivery network to control browser development was a bad idea from the start.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707418
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809698
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Chrome Canary just killed uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2 extensions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178
pulvinar 2y ago
Safari + AdGuard works fine. Just seems odd that people pretend there aren't other options.

31 points by LinuxBender 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

At this point I'm so sick of ads and so used to browsing without them, that I think if it comes to choosing, then I'll just give up on much of the internet instead of viewing it with ads.

jmclnx 2y ago
Well we can always go back to gopher: https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi And/or start using Gemini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol) https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi I have moved my site to gopher/gemini. It is far easier to maintain and there are a lot of interesting sites sitting there. Just a few: * gemini://sdf.org * gemini://gem.sdf.org/ * gopher://sdf.org * gopher://magical.fish * gopher://gopher.floodgap.com
- damnesian 2y ago
  This is really interesting! I remember gopher from back in the day- I didn't know it still existed even as a protocol. Wouldn't that be an interesting development, for web browsing shifting to a "have-to" paradigm (for work, for other utilitatarian purposes) from a "want-to" paradigm. Would spam dry up if the web were no longer populated by the masses merely whiling away idle time?
Yeul 2y ago
Yes I've given up on YouTube because of ads. Got tired of fixing Revanced.

CalRobert 2y ago

At this point it’s hard to have much sympathy when Firefox is literally right there, for free.

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
> Gorhill reports on GitHub that an automated code review by Mozilla flagged problems with uBlock Origin Lite. As a result, he has pulled the add-on from Mozilla's extensions site. The extension's former page now just says "Oops! We can't find that page". You can still install it direct from GitHub, though. I genuinely think one of the biggest problems in digital society is people being addicted to reading headlines without doing the boring work of reading the article.
- miloignis 2y ago
  I think GP meant that there's a big difference between Mozilla flagging the less-powerful uBlock as a mistake and Google intentionally deprecating the entire mechanism that the more-powerful uBlock depends on, and that you can continue to use the original and more powerful version of uBlock on Firefox for the foreseeable future. Thus, Firefox should be the clear choice for people who want to block ads. That view is entirely consistent with reading the article, as in-fact the article points this out.
  - mossTechnician 2y ago
    Mozilla is still the better company producing the better browser, in general, but as The Register says, it is now an ad company too. And the uBO Lite flagging caused more developers to confirm the difficulty of the review process and the minimal value of publishing to the Firefox store. Phrases like "useless time sink expensive", "a real nightmare to work with" and "we just decided to give up" (from three different devs) stand out to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41710183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41710183

kwar13 2y ago

Pihole + ublock origin and you have made your browsing experience leagues better. Chrome phasing out Manifest v2 will reignite Firefox transition for many.

everybodyknows 2y ago
Do you really mean "ublock" rather than Ublock Origin? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin
- kwar13 2y ago
  ublock origin as you've linked.
stemlord 2y ago
What does pihole block that ublock doesn't?
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Every single thing that isn't in your browser. App ads, all the trackers from Netflix, Plex, Sonos, etc.
  - 112233 2y ago
    You think it does, or you know it does? If the later, where can I read more about it? Because, e.g., Apple has official support for allowing apps to easily use DoH/DoT for their connections: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10047/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10047/ I would be mighty surprised if this was the only such mechanism
    - Larrikin 2y ago
      I know for a fact it does. I can view the logs in AdGuard Plus, the only time I see an ad in Words With Friends or Flipboard on my iPad is when I'm off my Tailscale VPN (which goes through AGP). Apps that serve their ads directly, like YouTube, are not blocked sadly. But there are multiple workaround apps for that on Android atleast. Also some apps don't work with the tracking blocked, like Fox Sports, but I just whitelist the minimum amount needed on a per device basis.

visch 2y ago

Will there be any good chromium alternatives that allow Ublock to continue working? Or do we have to go to Firefox?

orphea 2y ago
Brave perhaps. But even they are going to support MV2 only as long its code remains in Chromium repo, I think.
Gemdation 2y ago
I'd like to remind everyone that you can still block ads with such Chromium browsers that are deprecating Manifest V3. Extensions include AdGuard and uBlock Origin Lite. What this changes is that (adblocking) extensions are losing some permissions (like manually picking out elements to block, web requests to update the block lists, etc).
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Why do you feel the need to remind people about a poor alternative?
  - Gemdation 2y ago
    I feel the need to correct a misconception, of course. Yes I am aware of the Firefox and uBlock Origin combo.

underseacables 2y ago

In the never ending war, the people will build better mechanisms for blocking and hiding advertising.

jmclnx 2y ago

>So, if you use Chrome, or a Chrome-based browser Seems Mozilla may have an opening in browser market share, if they allow add blocking extensions. But how long before sites start blocking Firefox ? Already on some sites have issues when people are using a VPN. Yes, I did try browsing with out add blockers, and the experience was terrible. Some "mainstream" sites you would think would know better had multiple popups. So blocker on. I would not mind ads as long as they were not intrusive, but seems it is getting worse and worse.

Arnt 2y ago
Manifest v2 → v3 isn't really about allowing or disallowing adblockers. https://textslashplain.com/2024/10/13/content-blocking-in-manifest-v3/ https://textslashplain.com/2024/10/13/content-blocking-in-ma... has a 12-line ad blocker that's pretty effective against Google's own ads. Ad blockers suffer more or less by accident. v2 was too easy to use for evil extensions.
- wruza 2y ago
  Skeptical readers will note that this trivial approach blocks one type of Google’s ads, but not every type of Google ads. And that’s certainly true. And then proceeds to sweep it under some nostalgy. Nice try ;) To learn what something is about, learn what it does to money. Subj does good to money, so it is for that. Extension security is a lateral positive effect used for marketing. If it was important, MV2 would get upgraded soon after or even before its release. They didn’t care for all these years, only now it crossed their mind. Sure, sure. And they won’t include the most important project on the web into the standard suite. “No, it’s for everyone, we can’t make exceptions and we’ll remove the page access functionality for other browsers cause that’s uhm… un… unsustainable! Such an accident, ad blocking was so good.”. That’s a quantum law of bigcorps, there’s nothing under the money layer. Everything beyond money is just an interpretation and a side effect.
- mindslight 2y ago
  The fundamental problem is that centralizing Google (née Doubleclick) considers well-loved libre software and lower-tier surveillance industry malware to be equivalently worthy of trust. It's a reasonable goal to keep Grandma from installing no-name extension #837 (bundled with bottom-market surveillance malware) in spite of herself. But projects like UBO and syncthing have reputations that frankly deserve more trust than Google, itself a top-market player in the surveillance industry.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

g19205 2y ago

I stopped installing adblockers, instead I don't interact with sites with heavy ads. in fact I didn't read op, because there's like a dozen of ads on that theregister page. I realized that I don't lose much. Danny O'Brien coined the term "hinternet", the bad neighborhoods of the internet that normal, non techie people are forced to interact with (this was back when such a distinction still made sense). a lot of internet is hinternet now, even more so than before, and it's almost liberating to aggressively reject it. (I'm not going full Richard Stallman about it, sometimes I'll suffer the ads for content, I throw many articles into archive.is, which only shows one ad at the bottom, and I think it's worthwhile to support them, etc.)

tzs 2y ago
> in fact I didn't read op, because there's like a dozen of ads on that theregister page Huh? Unless they are serving you a vastly different page than they serve me that's not the case. UBlock Origin blocks 4 things right away, 3 of which seem to be ads and the logging or analytics. Then sitting on the page over the next few minutes that rises to 7, with the new ones all seeming to be logging or analytics. Refreshing the page several times to see different ads, they were always either short banners that spanned the page or a square in the middle of the column about 2/3 of the column width. Most of the time they were not animated. The only animated ones I saw just had an animated fade in which lasted maybe half a second and then it was static.
- g19205 2y ago
  I overexagerated, it feels like dozen of ads by the real estate they take up. you're technically and precisely correct by your definition. I just don't go to most news paper and magazine websites.
thiht 2y ago
> I stopped installing adblockers, instead I don't interact with sites with heavy ads Or, you know, just install an adblocker. I have no idea why people would voluntarily not install an adblocker today, you’re just making your life more difficult for no valid reason. No matter how you justify it, your experience without an adblocker is strictly worse than my experience with an adblocker. You’re rejecting less by allowing some ads to get through than rejecting all ads in bulk.

jeffwask 2y ago

Excellent news, we should see a rapid revitalization of third-party browsers. Allowing the ad delivery network to control browser development was a bad idea from the start.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707418

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809698

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: Chrome Canary just killed uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2 extensions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178

pulvinar 2y ago

Safari + AdGuard works fine. Just seems odd that people pretend there aren't other options.