>The market share of iOS also has increased a bit, and iOS does not allow ad blocking very easily. You have to configure some sorta DNS-based ad blocking, which is harder than the traditional desktop firefox/chrome adblockers to install.
Are you considering installing a content blocker not easy? Or not ad blocking? Firefox Focus is free and a few taps away from the app store.
Seems easier to me than installing ublock origin on desktops. Which people can easily be misled into installing ublock, or adblocker, or any the other scammy ones that do not really block ads or do something else nefarious. It is harder for a non technical user to get fooled by an iOS content blocker.
> Are you considering installing a content blocker not easy? Or not ad blocking?
If you google how to install an adblocker on iOS, you get garbage results which will mostly only work for safari, and will mostly not block google's ads ("acceptable ads").
If I google 'ios ad blocker' and install the apps in the order recommended, I think I'd have to go through ~10 garbage apps before I got to firefox focus.
... And I think for a lot of people, firefox focus isn't viable because they want their chrome bookmarks to sync etc.
When I said "DNS-based ad blocking, which is harder than the traditional desktop firefox/chrome adblockers to install.", I was mostly thinking of installing pi-hole since that's the reliable way to block stuff on iOS, since otherwise the matrix of content blockers is a total mess. I'll stand by pi-hole being too much for most people.
> I worry about the internet a hell of a lot more on IPhones than I do on androids, because I can't install a proper adblocker, because of Apples anti-competitive policies regarding browsers (the ad blocking api's in safari are gimped compared to firefox).
This is silly. Who determines what a "proper adblocker" is? There are plenty of adblockers available for iOS. In fact, you can even use Firefox AS an adblocker.
> in iOS, firefox really don't have any choice as they can't even use their own engine due to Apple egregious appstore policy.
Funny you said that, out of the top of my head:
- Brave have a full featured adblock built in on iOS;
- Edge(!) have adblock plus extension built in as well;
- iCab have adblock capabilities built
As you can see, there's plenty of options even with Apple engine restriction. They just don't care enough to give iOS users a good experience, see the frustration on these threads[1][2]. It's all fair, I just gave up using Firefox on iOS and stopped caring about Firefox as well. Surfing the web without a proper adblock is just a rollercoast of frustration.
> The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads.
Most people don’t.
Most people who use anything for iOS tend to use things like:
- 1Blocker - super full featured, including custom script and css rules. business model is paid software, not ‘acceptable ads’ paying them for placement or third parties paying for your data
- AdGuard Pro - Similar to 1Blocker, less custom config friendly
- https://nextdns.io/ - pihole type blocker with unlimited configurations, custom rules, and analytics, native hooks for devices
- https://adguard-dns.io/ - similar DNS[1] service to nextdns.io with ability to upload your own rules based configurations
- Firefox Focus if using that ecosystem
- Brave if using that ecosystem
- iCab Mobile if wanting a super configurable browser with filter rules and longest history as indie browser for iOS
> I am able to use Firefox Focus to block ads in Safari on iOS
You think you are able to, but you just got lucky so far.
Focus code is very buggy and work for only a few sites. It's very hard to contribute fixes, so I expect it to stagnate even more. And since the sites we, the tech elite, read are similar to the ones the few maintainers do, those will be well served while all the rest of the internet will not see any improvement. IMO it will probably rot away like reader-mode.
Also, it is trivial for publishers to evade it :( just not a effort anyone even bothers with because of the low traffic.
Real firefox for android allows you to install uBlockOrigin. The only actively maintained adblocker that is being gasslighted everywhere. And that you was never allowed to install on IOS devices thanks to Apple the company.
> Once people install ad blockers, they don't typically remove them. And ad-blockers keep growing
> don't fundamentally understand why people allow ads on their devices when they can prevent it
The market share of iOS also has increased a bit, and iOS does not allow ad blocking very easily. You have to configure some sorta DNS-based ad blocking, which is harder than the traditional desktop firefox/chrome adblockers to install.
Usage of computers has also shifted towards phone/tablet apps, away from desktop browsers... And ad-blocking in apps is hard to impossible compared to on desktops.
I'm not surprised people continue to see a lot of ads as we move from the web, where mature ad-blockers exist, to apps, where ad-blocking is harder and less mature.
Even very technical people usually don't bother with pi-hole and see ads in free android apps.
Oh, and also, there are occasionally cases of an ad-blocker removing itself somewhat, i.e. adblock plus used to be the go to recommendation for ad-blocking, but they started allowing google ads through in an update (https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads)... so maybe someone installed adblock plus because that's what they remembered from 10 years ago (and adblock plus has better SEO than ublock origin too), and thus still gets google ads now.
> Because content blockers are fine for the majority of users, IMO.
This seems like putting the cart before the horse, no? Apple is in a good position to change this and chose not to. Personally it changed the internet for me when I could right click ? block content forever. Meanwhile I haven’t found any content blocker on ios or safari that successfully blocks all ads. Even firefox focus lets some through.
There’s a reason they’re focusing on “privacy” and not “ad blocking”.
> How do you guys manage proper ad blocking on mobile?
On Android, I installed Firefox and uBlock Origin. It was pretty cool that the same thing I use on desktop Firefox (and other browsers) also works on mobile.
Except that it seems like Chrome on Android doesn't seem to support extensions, so I basically can't fix that browser, which mostly prevents me from using it for anything.
That said, I might soon get an iPhone (for developing/testing an app, which will probably also mean a MacBook, since they don't officially offer their software on other platforms), so I hope that things will work out there as well.
> Why was iOS's inclusion of ad blocking capabilities the turning point in what seemed to be an already-unstoppable movement towards a return to sanity for the web?
Because iOS was the last major platform on which true adblocking was (AFAIK) completely impossible until this week.
Desktop browsers have had adblocking for ages, and even non-rooted Android devices can block ads in webpages (root is required only to block ads in native apps).
>What are people using on their phones these days for ad blocking?
uBlock Origin of course, what else? Running on Firefox (Nightly).
>(iphone specifically)
If you want an iPhone, you shouldn't complain about ads. If you want to block ads, get an Android. If Apple wanted you to block ads, they'd build a good ad-blocker into their phone. They don't, and they forcibly prevent you from using a different browser and ad-blocker, so obviously they want you to view ads.
This is specifically looking at (pre-manifest-V3) Chrome, so there are some other differences with Safari, but CNAME uncloaking is the most obvious example.
See also some of the previous comments I've made about this in the past (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23622206). A few of these details might have changed (I vaguely think I remember Apple raising the rule limit), but I think the fundamentals are all still true.
> Did you personally vet the open source code? Did you compile it from scratch and install it on your phone or are you trusting it’s the same code?
I have read through parts of uBlock Origin's code, yes, but ultimately I'm trusting the broader Open Source community to say it doesn't have holes in it. And yes, I'm trusting Mozilla's vetting process for its "trusted extension" category. I think that's a reasonable thing for most people to do.
Of course, I could compile the extension myself, but I think to a certain degree that would be security theater.
----
Again, just really surprising to see an argument that boils down to "this Open Source application might potentially spy on me, and that's a greater danger than the websites that I know are actively spying on me right now." If Safari adblocking is good enough for you and your threat models, great. You don't need to justify that by pretending that uBlock Origin is insecure.
I will note, by the by, that Safari's limitations mean that (at least on desktop) the top-rated adblockers like AdGuard have shifted to running as external applications separate from the browser (https://adguard.com/en/welcome.html). This is not a dig at AdGuard, I think the AdGuard devs (as of last time I checked) are doing really great work. But if you're worried about sandboxing, running a desktop app is a lot more invasive than running a browser extension. I don't know if there are ways to do the same circumvention on iOS, so it's possible that AdGuard devs are staying in the browser sandbox there; I'd need to double-check.
Of course, you can use apps like AdGuard as pure extensions in their more limited form (I don't recommend a specific iOS app, but unless something has changed since the last time I checked, AdGuard is a solid choice) -- but you will get a more limited adblocker as a result. The performance might be good enough for you, and that's fine. But it's still correct to say that it will be more limited.
----
I will also add to this just to preempt anyone arguing otherwise that I am not saying that browser extensions shouldn't have better sandboxing. They should, extension sandboxing is awful and it needs to improve. What I am saying is that the specific sandboxing model that Safari uses (and that Chrome is moving towards) for adblocking limits their effectiveness.
AFAIK, ad blocking in Chrome on my phone is difficult. But with Firefox, I can easily install uBlock Origin.
I use a PiHole on my phone occasionally to block ads in anything that isn't Firefox, but I found that the OpenVPN client is a significant battery drain (~7% per hour).
> fortunately at some places multiple developers used uBlock so it wasn't as hard as making the case alone.
Is adblocking not common? Every tech literate person I know uses an ad blocker. I'd say about 30-40% of millennials I know use them, most using ADB or uBlock Origin.
Every time I see someone using a browser with ads I forget what a nightmare the internet is.
> People who want to block all ads can opt into that with a Firefox ad-blocking extension
Except on iOS, where you have to finagle with VPN-based blockers
> because as a Chromium browser it's a part of that hegemony
I'm well aware. I'd rather use (and recommend to less techy people) Firefox, but I can't with their current stance. People want/need adblocking but they also want sync. If Firefox had an ad-blocking toggle that was off by default that'd be fine by me.
> I’ve used a declarative ad blocker on iOS for years and haven’t seen ads in a long time, especially not on big websites like Youtube
I do too! But I also run into pages that are broken all the time (pages don't scroll down, entirely white/black pages load with no content, etc). This is with AdGuard's basic filter set and updated filters. uBlock Origin doesn't have these problems.
> But we've already had examples of ad-blocking companies doing deals with advertisers to whitelist URLs and I simply don't trust them not to on-sell my browser history.
As I recall, uBlock Origin originated as a direct response to ad-blockers engaging in exactly this behavior.
Content blockers are nice, but I’m going to have to agree they are necessary but insufficient on my phone. uBlock Origin as it exists in say Firefox is pretty much exactly what I want and I’d be able to probably uninstall every other ad-blocking extension. I appreciate that Apple tried this approach initially but it’s time to change course and allow more powerful ad-blockers to also exist.
> My ad blocking app uses a VPN configuration so it works in every single app on my iPhone.
I would never trust an ad blocking app with all my traffic data and who the hell knows what else besides the VPN configuration it's installing in that profile.
Installing an iOS configuration profile is more or less equivalent to handing out physical unlocked access to whoever made that profile you've just installed.
I'm not saying your VPN-based Ad-Blocker is doing this. I'm saying they could. And just them having that capability is enough for me to never hand them that capability in the first place.
Are you considering installing a content blocker not easy? Or not ad blocking? Firefox Focus is free and a few taps away from the app store.
Seems easier to me than installing ublock origin on desktops. Which people can easily be misled into installing ublock, or adblocker, or any the other scammy ones that do not really block ads or do something else nefarious. It is harder for a non technical user to get fooled by an iOS content blocker.
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