9 ms·

Firefox Has Integrated Brave's Adblock Engine

422 points by nreece 5mo ago

devsda 5mo ago
I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
- zephyreon 5mo ago
  Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers. I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
  - charleslmunger 5mo ago
    >Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
    - zephyreon 5mo ago
      I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
      - collabs 5mo ago
        The multi user containers are also very nice.
        gawa 5mo ago
        And to go one step further, for achieving a profile-per-firefox-window workflow, I suggest to have a look at the underrated extension Sticky Window Containers [0] While far from being perfect, I find it good enough for keeping things separated, especially when using a desktop/workspace workflow. For example, in workspace/desktop 2 I have a Firefox window opened with the first tab set to "container A", so hitting ctrl-t there opens new tabs with the same container "A", so I'm logged-in for all projects A. In another Firefox window in workspace 3 I work with "business project B" tabs (where I'm logged into different atlassian, github, cloud, gmail, ...) Then with a Window Manager like i3wm or Sway I set keybinds to jump directly to the window (and workspace), using the mark feature [1] It's also possible to open websites directly in specific containers so it's flexible. For example on my desktop 8 I have all my AI webchats in "wherever my company pay for it" tabs: `firefox --new-window 'ext+container:name=loggedInPersonnal&url=https://chat.mistral.ai https://chat.mistral.ai' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessA&url=https://chatgpt.com https://chatgpt.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://gemini.google.com https://gemini.google.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://claude.ai https://claude.ai'` It's also the only way I found to keep opened multiple chat apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, ...). The alternative electron apps are as resource-hungry, and in my experience never handled multiple accounts well (especially Teams). [O] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window-containers/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window... [1] https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks
    - lxgr 5mo ago
      And there's nothing in MV2 that uBlock Origin needs that doesn't exist in MV3 on Firefox, unlike Chrome. This issue is completely overblown.
      - curt15 5mo ago
        Are you disputing uBlock Origin's list of MV3-incompatible capabilities [1]? [1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
        andrewaylett 5mo ago
        That list contains issues with the APIs that Chrome exposes via MV3. Firefox still supports APIs that Chrome removed.
        lxgr 5mo ago
        Not really, but this FAQ, like almost all articles published on MV3, conflates MV3 the specification with Chrome's MV3 implementation. (FWIW, I'm almost certain that this is either due to sloppy/imprecise writing or intentional, with the authors not wanting to confuse users already appropriately riled up by equally imprecise reporting on MV3. They definitely know the difference.) In any case, for better or worse, when people say MV3, they now usually mean "Chrome's MV3 implementation", which obviously never applies to Firefox.
      - ragall 5mo ago
        That's utter bullshit. The author of uBlock Origin has posted a long list of capabilities that declarativeNetRequest does not support.
        tyushk 5mo ago
        Unlike Chrome, Firefox did not remove the older API.
        5mo ago
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    > Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
  - striking 5mo ago
    Try Zen! Firefox fork with Arc-like UX.
    - pjjpo 5mo ago
      Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
  - tosti 5mo ago
    Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes. In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 5mo ago
  The day Firefox drops MV2 is the day I find a new browser. We're already at <1% usershare, it's not like there's safety in numbers here
  - pogue 5mo ago
    I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout. Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those. Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
    - cookiengineer 5mo ago
      > I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout. My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
      - pogue 5mo ago
        You use ladybird as your primary web browser? And it works?
        cookiengineer 5mo ago
        For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase. I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env. I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it. Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June). [1] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp [2] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex
- userbinator 5mo ago
  As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser. However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
  - 6ak74rfy 5mo ago
    Tell me more, what's your setup. I use uBlock Origin in Firefox and network ad blocker. Wondering what other options are there.
    - spockz 5mo ago
      In general, install a proxy which has its own certificate, resign every tls session with those keys, add the certificate of the proxy as a trusted certificate on your device. I’m not familiar with off the shelf solutions for this that have ad blocking built in. Also ads are injected by JS so you need a mechanism to detect that. More and more ads are now served from the same domain as the site making it harder to distinguish them from real content.
      - kotaKat 5mo ago
        ZScaler Internet Access will do it with the right blocking configurations (eg, blocking "Advertising" groups). But then you're using ZScaler and that just feels all nice and icky.
      - Bender 5mo ago
        The open source solution is to configure the latest Squid proxy as a Squid SSL Bump proxy. There are a handful of sites it will not work with due to them still using public key pinning but its a tiny list. I do not have it handy at the moment. Squid supports ACL's that can block URL patterns, domains, IP addresses, file extensions, mime types and much more. Here [1] is an out of date example. There are probably better and more up to date examples. Some examples are based off Squid V3 as some distros still ship with that but Squid 6 added more flexibility around chaining options SOCKS options and such. [1] - https://github.com/alatas/squid-alpine-ssl https://github.com/alatas/squid-alpine-ssl
nextaccountic 5mo ago
Does this benefit people that use uBlock Origin? Maybe uBlock Origin for Firefox could be updated to make use of this
- toofy 5mo ago
  sounds like it just uses ublocks lists. though it doesn’t seem to work as well as ublock, the ad slots are still there with just the ad missing so there’s a giant ugly blank spot.
  - fabrice_d 5mo ago
    Probably because they don't leverage cosmetic filtering yet: https://docs.rs/adblock/latest/adblock/struct.Engine.html#method.url_cosmetic_resources https://docs.rs/adblock/latest/adblock/struct.Engine.html#me...
  - SadTrombone 5mo ago
    I'd imagine that's the reason it's not enabled by default, they're not finished fully implementing it in Firefox yet.
gtrevorjay 5mo ago
This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.
- Paul-Craft 5mo ago
  I can certainly imagine such a world. I don't use Brave because I don't want to support Brendan Eich.
  - kulahan 5mo ago
    So instead you use, what, Chrome because you want to support Sundar Pichai??
    - pixxel 5mo ago
      [dead]
    - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
      You are literally on a thread about Firefox, and you think someone saying they don't use Brave must be using Chrome?
      - kulahan 5mo ago
        You are literally in a thread where 90% of the discussion is surrounding chromium and you think this isn’t a connected idea? Edit: also crazy that someone who doesn’t want to support the Brave guy would support the browser using the Brave guy’s stuff, but I guess I see lots of chick-fil-a haters shopping in Amazon these days, so who am I to question what’s in vogue?
        JoshTriplett 5mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900153 > Brendan Eich didn't personally write the code, and he doesn't benefit from Firefox using it. If anything this hurts him, since Firefox is catching up to an advantage of Brave without investing their own development resources. > No matter from what angle I look at this situation, your complaint makes no sense. Don't assume the positions of people who disagree with you are not thought out. It is a dangerous line of reasoning to go "if only they thought it through for more than five seconds they'd agree with me".
Steve6 5mo ago
I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking. My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice. I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.
- esperent 5mo ago
  Even better now that they have a paid offering with all that crap stripped out (Brave Origin) which is free on Linux.
  - pogue 5mo ago
    Everyone has made these Brave debloat tools that basically do the same thing as their ridiculous Origin offering. To sell for $60 a web browser that technically has all the features removed is a pretty goofy move.
    - cr125rider 5mo ago
      Eh that’s a common business model. Pay to get the ads removed is basically the same thing.
      - pogue 5mo ago
        Well, I'll link to this video review by Techlore. Brave Just Released a Paid Browser: Here's What You Need to Know https://youtube.com/watch?v=3i5KH0l895o https://youtube.com/watch?v=3i5KH0l895o
        tjoff 5mo ago
fishgoesblub 5mo ago
It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.
- jasonvorhe 5mo ago
  I'm so glad Brave arose from all this overblown mess. What a solid product, one you disable the web3 crap. Using Firefox and derivatives feels like using a Java application on the desktop years ago. Every interaction seems foreign. Meh.
MrAlex94 5mo ago
I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation. Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.
gbil 5mo ago
If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold. I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices. Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms. But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since
- mmooss 5mo ago
  What is the use case for keyboard shortcuts on handheld devices? On desktops/laptops, keyboard shortcuts save reaching for a mouse, aiming (on the relativley large screen), and clicking. On handhelds, I don't think it's faster to use a shortcut than to simply tap something an inch away. Also, on handhelds, the keyboard blocks a significant part of the screen. And keyboard shortcuts typically use accelerator keys, which are hard to use on handhelds. Do you use Android with a physical keyboard?
  - gbear605 5mo ago
    Could be referring to a physical keyboard attached to an iPad
  - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
    I have a physical keyboard for my foldable. Works great, except that keyboard shortcuts don't typically work as expected.
  - catlikesshrimp 5mo ago
    Yes, I do, now on then. I started using a keyboard on handhelds with my palm m100, so I am not in the mayority.
  - gbil 5mo ago
    I use an Android tablet with detachable keyboard and works great also with Samsung DEX if you want something more for basic multitasking and there i want the shortcuts, I actually used it a lot, before firefox switched to Fenix base, for navigating tabs, opening closing them really really smooth but then....
poisonborz 5mo ago
Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.
- lxgr 5mo ago
  Maybe they're being realistic about how long these projects could survive without Mozilla doing all the work upstream?
- jeroenhd 5mo ago
  Same reason people want Chromium to stay around: their forks will collapse within months if the free work from upstream stops happening. Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Tor Browser, Librewolf, they're all little more than reconfigurations and reskins of Chromium when you look at the entire code base. Yes, the Brave as block engine and Operas power saving modes are non-trivial, but the engine they're built on is the size of an operating system.
  - lightdot 5mo ago
    Librewolf: "This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom." "Tor Browser is based on Mozilla Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) but has been heavily modified for use with the Tor network." Those are direct quotes from their respective web pages. Neither of them has anything to do with Chromium.
    - jeroenhd 5mo ago
      You're right, I edited my sentence to include more examples and forgot to add "or Firefox" for Tor and Librewolf. Sorry about that. I would edit my comment above to clarify, but the limited edit time window for HN seems to have passed.
Markoff 5mo ago
For anyone looking for Android alternative: Cromite - Chromium, MV2 extensions, good new tab page with 4x4 shortcuts (2x4 pinnable) with direct access to bookmarks https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases Helium - Chromium, only MV3 extensions, built in browser from Graphene https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases Elixir - Chromium, only MV3, tabbed interface suitable for tablets https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh). On desktop the recommendation is much easier: Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com
- FireInsight 5mo ago
  Android Firefox versions that are geat as well - [Ironfox](https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox): Hardened - [Fennec](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/): Fully FOSS
  - MarsIronPI 5mo ago
    Oh, I've always used Fennec; does the main Firefox Android build not support extensions?
    - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
      Firefox for Android supports extensions just fine. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin as my only browser on both mobile and desktop, and use Firefox Sync to send tabs between them. I literally disable the preinstalled Chrome on Android.
evilpie 5mo ago
> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with. > - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox. > - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin. > - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_will_start_bundling_in_braves_adblock/oi1xklx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_wi... This is what the official Firefox account had to say when this came up on reddit.
- lxgr 5mo ago
  > This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox. Oof, so even people that should really know better are now equating MV3 with "no more ad blocking"? I think at this point the entire thing just needs to be renamed. (Only Chrome removed the request blocking API from their MV3 implementation; Firefox did not.)
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - stavros 5mo ago
    Did Vivaldi? Or Brave? Will uBlock work properly with Mv3 and request blocking?
    - lxgr 5mo ago
      Of course everything based on Chromium will inherit most of Chrome's decisions, including this one. (Unless they fork their entire web extension implementation and maintain the fork forever.)
      - stavros 5mo ago
nirui 5mo ago
Great. Coming just in time when people think the "main stream" browsers are too boring. I'm actually glad to see Mozilla has grown a little bit "predatorial" if it can bring good to the users. The implementation is polite too, as it lets you know there was an ad been muted. There's a lot of things that can still be done in the browser space. For example, one-click login even without entering email, easy purchase without the website ever collecting your card number (or other financial detail beyond necessary), etc etc. Ads can also be improved too, by making them not violating nor annoying. The possibilities are still great, I hope Mozilla can figure out a way to tap into it.
elros 5mo ago
I stopped paying attention when the major browsers started to act somewhat against the interests of ad-blocking add-ons, some years ago. Would anyone who has kept up let me know what would be the 2026 "industry standard" in terms of an ad-blocking and privacy stack? I primarily use Chrome on Mac and Safari on iPhone but I'm willing to change browsers for better ad-blocking and privacy. I would also be interested in solutions that scale beyond a single machine, for when I'm at home (e.g. should I get a little box and use it as an ad blocker between my internet my router and my network or something?)
- maleldil 5mo ago
  Firefox with uBlock Origin. Nothing else comes close.
  - the1thatgb 5mo ago
    [dead]
- coffeeling 5mo ago
  Brave's an easy slot-in - fiddle with settings or buy Brave Origin, and you get what's basically Chrome, except it has a built-in ad blocker that can do stuff extension-based ad blockers (even MV2 ones) can't do on Chromium, the profile sync backend is end to end encrypted, and you get ~uBO grade adblock on mobile. A chief benefit is that Chromium is much more secure than Firefox, especially on mobile.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 5mo ago
Open source doing what it's meant to. Brave built a solid engine, Firefox gets to use it. Hoping Firefox maintainers contribute back upstream too, rather than making it a one-way street.
mzmzmzm 5mo ago
I recently switched from Android to iOS... no comment except all of the browsers just being a wrapper for Safari is really limiting. I love Firefox and still use it on desktop but I couldn't handle it without extensions on mobile and switched to Brave. Somehow Brave on iOS can do content blocking really well. Will this change make it to the iOS version? I would love to switch back to Firefox where all my stuff is synced.
- coffeeling 5mo ago
  Brave has an end to end encrypted sync service as well.
emirdw 5mo ago
This reminds me of how powerful client-side processing has become recently.
- gnabgib 5mo ago
  How has client-side processing (powerful or not) caused Firefox to reuse Brave's Adblock engine?

422 points by nreece 5mo ago

I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.

zephyreon 5mo ago
Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers. I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
- charleslmunger 5mo ago
  >Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
  - zephyreon 5mo ago
    I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
    - collabs 5mo ago
      The multi user containers are also very nice.
      - gawa 5mo ago
        And to go one step further, for achieving a profile-per-firefox-window workflow, I suggest to have a look at the underrated extension Sticky Window Containers [0] While far from being perfect, I find it good enough for keeping things separated, especially when using a desktop/workspace workflow. For example, in workspace/desktop 2 I have a Firefox window opened with the first tab set to "container A", so hitting ctrl-t there opens new tabs with the same container "A", so I'm logged-in for all projects A. In another Firefox window in workspace 3 I work with "business project B" tabs (where I'm logged into different atlassian, github, cloud, gmail, ...) Then with a Window Manager like i3wm or Sway I set keybinds to jump directly to the window (and workspace), using the mark feature [1] It's also possible to open websites directly in specific containers so it's flexible. For example on my desktop 8 I have all my AI webchats in "wherever my company pay for it" tabs: `firefox --new-window 'ext+container:name=loggedInPersonnal&url=https://chat.mistral.ai https://chat.mistral.ai' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessA&url=https://chatgpt.com https://chatgpt.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://gemini.google.com https://gemini.google.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://claude.ai https://claude.ai'` It's also the only way I found to keep opened multiple chat apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, ...). The alternative electron apps are as resource-hungry, and in my experience never handled multiple accounts well (especially Teams). [O] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window-containers/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window... [1] https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks
  - lxgr 5mo ago
    And there's nothing in MV2 that uBlock Origin needs that doesn't exist in MV3 on Firefox, unlike Chrome. This issue is completely overblown.
    - curt15 5mo ago
      Are you disputing uBlock Origin's list of MV3-incompatible capabilities [1]? [1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
      - andrewaylett 5mo ago
        That list contains issues with the APIs that Chrome exposes via MV3. Firefox still supports APIs that Chrome removed.
      - lxgr 5mo ago
        Not really, but this FAQ, like almost all articles published on MV3, conflates MV3 the specification with Chrome's MV3 implementation. (FWIW, I'm almost certain that this is either due to sloppy/imprecise writing or intentional, with the authors not wanting to confuse users already appropriately riled up by equally imprecise reporting on MV3. They definitely know the difference.) In any case, for better or worse, when people say MV3, they now usually mean "Chrome's MV3 implementation", which obviously never applies to Firefox.
    - ragall 5mo ago
      That's utter bullshit. The author of uBlock Origin has posted a long list of capabilities that declarativeNetRequest does not support.
      - tyushk 5mo ago
        Unlike Chrome, Firefox did not remove the older API.
        5mo ago
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  > Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features. The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
- striking 5mo ago
  Try Zen! Firefox fork with Arc-like UX.
  - pjjpo 5mo ago
    Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
- tosti 5mo ago
  Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes. In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
OsrsNeedsf2P 5mo ago
The day Firefox drops MV2 is the day I find a new browser. We're already at <1% usershare, it's not like there's safety in numbers here
- pogue 5mo ago
  I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout. Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those. Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
  - cookiengineer 5mo ago
    > I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout. My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
    - pogue 5mo ago
      You use ladybird as your primary web browser? And it works?
      - cookiengineer 5mo ago
        For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase. I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env. I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it. Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June). [1] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp [2] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex
userbinator 5mo ago
As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser. However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
- 6ak74rfy 5mo ago
  Tell me more, what's your setup. I use uBlock Origin in Firefox and network ad blocker. Wondering what other options are there.
  - spockz 5mo ago
    In general, install a proxy which has its own certificate, resign every tls session with those keys, add the certificate of the proxy as a trusted certificate on your device. I’m not familiar with off the shelf solutions for this that have ad blocking built in. Also ads are injected by JS so you need a mechanism to detect that. More and more ads are now served from the same domain as the site making it harder to distinguish them from real content.
    - kotaKat 5mo ago
      ZScaler Internet Access will do it with the right blocking configurations (eg, blocking "Advertising" groups). But then you're using ZScaler and that just feels all nice and icky.
    - Bender 5mo ago
      The open source solution is to configure the latest Squid proxy as a Squid SSL Bump proxy. There are a handful of sites it will not work with due to them still using public key pinning but its a tiny list. I do not have it handy at the moment. Squid supports ACL's that can block URL patterns, domains, IP addresses, file extensions, mime types and much more. Here [1] is an out of date example. There are probably better and more up to date examples. Some examples are based off Squid V3 as some distros still ship with that but Squid 6 added more flexibility around chaining options SOCKS options and such. [1] - https://github.com/alatas/squid-alpine-ssl https://github.com/alatas/squid-alpine-ssl

nextaccountic 5mo ago

Does this benefit people that use uBlock Origin? Maybe uBlock Origin for Firefox could be updated to make use of this

toofy 5mo ago
sounds like it just uses ublocks lists. though it doesn’t seem to work as well as ublock, the ad slots are still there with just the ad missing so there’s a giant ugly blank spot.
- fabrice_d 5mo ago
  Probably because they don't leverage cosmetic filtering yet: https://docs.rs/adblock/latest/adblock/struct.Engine.html#method.url_cosmetic_resources https://docs.rs/adblock/latest/adblock/struct.Engine.html#me...
- SadTrombone 5mo ago
  I'd imagine that's the reason it's not enabled by default, they're not finished fully implementing it in Firefox yet.

gtrevorjay 5mo ago

This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.

Paul-Craft 5mo ago
I can certainly imagine such a world. I don't use Brave because I don't want to support Brendan Eich.
- kulahan 5mo ago
  So instead you use, what, Chrome because you want to support Sundar Pichai??
  - pixxel 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
    You are literally on a thread about Firefox, and you think someone saying they don't use Brave must be using Chrome?
    - kulahan 5mo ago
      You are literally in a thread where 90% of the discussion is surrounding chromium and you think this isn’t a connected idea? Edit: also crazy that someone who doesn’t want to support the Brave guy would support the browser using the Brave guy’s stuff, but I guess I see lots of chick-fil-a haters shopping in Amazon these days, so who am I to question what’s in vogue?
      - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900153 > Brendan Eich didn't personally write the code, and he doesn't benefit from Firefox using it. If anything this hurts him, since Firefox is catching up to an advantage of Brave without investing their own development resources. > No matter from what angle I look at this situation, your complaint makes no sense. Don't assume the positions of people who disagree with you are not thought out. It is a dangerous line of reasoning to go "if only they thought it through for more than five seconds they'd agree with me".

Steve6 5mo ago

I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking. My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice. I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.

esperent 5mo ago
Even better now that they have a paid offering with all that crap stripped out (Brave Origin) which is free on Linux.
- pogue 5mo ago
  Everyone has made these Brave debloat tools that basically do the same thing as their ridiculous Origin offering. To sell for $60 a web browser that technically has all the features removed is a pretty goofy move.
  - cr125rider 5mo ago
    Eh that’s a common business model. Pay to get the ads removed is basically the same thing.
    - pogue 5mo ago
      Well, I'll link to this video review by Techlore. Brave Just Released a Paid Browser: Here's What You Need to Know https://youtube.com/watch?v=3i5KH0l895o https://youtube.com/watch?v=3i5KH0l895o
      - tjoff 5mo ago

fishgoesblub 5mo ago

It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.

jasonvorhe 5mo ago
I'm so glad Brave arose from all this overblown mess. What a solid product, one you disable the web3 crap. Using Firefox and derivatives feels like using a Java application on the desktop years ago. Every interaction seems foreign. Meh.

MrAlex94 5mo ago

I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation. Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.

gbil 5mo ago

If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold. I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices. Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms. But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since

mmooss 5mo ago
What is the use case for keyboard shortcuts on handheld devices? On desktops/laptops, keyboard shortcuts save reaching for a mouse, aiming (on the relativley large screen), and clicking. On handhelds, I don't think it's faster to use a shortcut than to simply tap something an inch away. Also, on handhelds, the keyboard blocks a significant part of the screen. And keyboard shortcuts typically use accelerator keys, which are hard to use on handhelds. Do you use Android with a physical keyboard?
- gbear605 5mo ago
  Could be referring to a physical keyboard attached to an iPad
- JoshTriplett 5mo ago
  I have a physical keyboard for my foldable. Works great, except that keyboard shortcuts don't typically work as expected.
- catlikesshrimp 5mo ago
  Yes, I do, now on then. I started using a keyboard on handhelds with my palm m100, so I am not in the mayority.
- gbil 5mo ago
  I use an Android tablet with detachable keyboard and works great also with Samsung DEX if you want something more for basic multitasking and there i want the shortcuts, I actually used it a lot, before firefox switched to Fenix base, for navigating tabs, opening closing them really really smooth but then....

poisonborz 5mo ago

Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.

lxgr 5mo ago
Maybe they're being realistic about how long these projects could survive without Mozilla doing all the work upstream?
jeroenhd 5mo ago
Same reason people want Chromium to stay around: their forks will collapse within months if the free work from upstream stops happening. Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Tor Browser, Librewolf, they're all little more than reconfigurations and reskins of Chromium when you look at the entire code base. Yes, the Brave as block engine and Operas power saving modes are non-trivial, but the engine they're built on is the size of an operating system.
- lightdot 5mo ago
  Librewolf: "This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom." "Tor Browser is based on Mozilla Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) but has been heavily modified for use with the Tor network." Those are direct quotes from their respective web pages. Neither of them has anything to do with Chromium.
  - jeroenhd 5mo ago
    You're right, I edited my sentence to include more examples and forgot to add "or Firefox" for Tor and Librewolf. Sorry about that. I would edit my comment above to clarify, but the limited edit time window for HN seems to have passed.

Markoff 5mo ago

For anyone looking for Android alternative: Cromite - Chromium, MV2 extensions, good new tab page with 4x4 shortcuts (2x4 pinnable) with direct access to bookmarks https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases Helium - Chromium, only MV3 extensions, built in browser from Graphene https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases Elixir - Chromium, only MV3, tabbed interface suitable for tablets https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh). On desktop the recommendation is much easier: Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com

FireInsight 5mo ago
Android Firefox versions that are geat as well - [Ironfox](https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox): Hardened - [Fennec](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/): Fully FOSS
- MarsIronPI 5mo ago
  Oh, I've always used Fennec; does the main Firefox Android build not support extensions?
  - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
    Firefox for Android supports extensions just fine. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin as my only browser on both mobile and desktop, and use Firefox Sync to send tabs between them. I literally disable the preinstalled Chrome on Android.

evilpie 5mo ago

> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with. > - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox. > - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin. > - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_will_start_bundling_in_braves_adblock/oi1xklx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_wi... This is what the official Firefox account had to say when this came up on reddit.

lxgr 5mo ago
> This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox. Oof, so even people that should really know better are now equating MV3 with "no more ad blocking"? I think at this point the entire thing just needs to be renamed. (Only Chrome removed the request blocking API from their MV3 implementation; Firefox did not.)
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- stavros 5mo ago
  Did Vivaldi? Or Brave? Will uBlock work properly with Mv3 and request blocking?
  - lxgr 5mo ago
    Of course everything based on Chromium will inherit most of Chrome's decisions, including this one. (Unless they fork their entire web extension implementation and maintain the fork forever.)
    - stavros 5mo ago

nirui 5mo ago

Great. Coming just in time when people think the "main stream" browsers are too boring. I'm actually glad to see Mozilla has grown a little bit "predatorial" if it can bring good to the users. The implementation is polite too, as it lets you know there was an ad been muted. There's a lot of things that can still be done in the browser space. For example, one-click login even without entering email, easy purchase without the website ever collecting your card number (or other financial detail beyond necessary), etc etc. Ads can also be improved too, by making them not violating nor annoying. The possibilities are still great, I hope Mozilla can figure out a way to tap into it.

elros 5mo ago

I stopped paying attention when the major browsers started to act somewhat against the interests of ad-blocking add-ons, some years ago. Would anyone who has kept up let me know what would be the 2026 "industry standard" in terms of an ad-blocking and privacy stack? I primarily use Chrome on Mac and Safari on iPhone but I'm willing to change browsers for better ad-blocking and privacy. I would also be interested in solutions that scale beyond a single machine, for when I'm at home (e.g. should I get a little box and use it as an ad blocker between my internet my router and my network or something?)

maleldil 5mo ago
Firefox with uBlock Origin. Nothing else comes close.
- the1thatgb 5mo ago
  [dead]
coffeeling 5mo ago
Brave's an easy slot-in - fiddle with settings or buy Brave Origin, and you get what's basically Chrome, except it has a built-in ad blocker that can do stuff extension-based ad blockers (even MV2 ones) can't do on Chromium, the profile sync backend is end to end encrypted, and you get ~uBO grade adblock on mobile. A chief benefit is that Chromium is much more secure than Firefox, especially on mobile.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 5mo ago

Open source doing what it's meant to. Brave built a solid engine, Firefox gets to use it. Hoping Firefox maintainers contribute back upstream too, rather than making it a one-way street.

mzmzmzm 5mo ago

I recently switched from Android to iOS... no comment except all of the browsers just being a wrapper for Safari is really limiting. I love Firefox and still use it on desktop but I couldn't handle it without extensions on mobile and switched to Brave. Somehow Brave on iOS can do content blocking really well. Will this change make it to the iOS version? I would love to switch back to Firefox where all my stuff is synced.

coffeeling 5mo ago
Brave has an end to end encrypted sync service as well.

emirdw 5mo ago

This reminds me of how powerful client-side processing has become recently.

gnabgib 5mo ago
How has client-side processing (powerful or not) caused Firefox to reuse Brave's Adblock engine?