Mastodawn

🌹

i just got the best pop up I've ever received on a website, on @stefan 's website

in related news, i just discovered that you can install ad blocker plugins to mobile Firefox now.

IDK how i missed that. how many years have i been suffering ads on mobile unnecessarily!??!??

renee_2_b Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl And life is now better!

Reay Jespersen Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl I couldn’t find anything about this with a quick search. Can you direct me to instructions on how to do that?

@reay (on Android) open Firefox; click three dots in the bottom right corner. Click 'Add-ons'. click "Add-on manager". It will show currently installed add ons and recommended add-ons. i use uBlock Origin.

@reay ahhh and apparently it's Android only, at least for now; no ios 😭

Marcus Adams Aug 29, 2023

@reay @tarajdactyl If you just go to settings and click add-ons, uBlock Origin is available, on Android at least. I think on iPhone everything is still essentially just a skin for Safari so they have less ability to add their own features.

Reay Jespersen Aug 29, 2023

@gerowen @tarajdactyl Yeah, it’s an iPhone, so that would maybe explain why I’m not seeing what I was hoping to see. These are my setting options.

starmina Aug 29, 2023

@reay @gerowen @tarajdactyl Maybe Firefox Focus could be enough on iOS ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reay Jespersen Aug 30, 2023

@starmina @gerowen @tarajdactyl Solid suggestion, but I often go heavy on tabs and sync bookmarks across devices, so that wouldn’t work for me.

keithzg Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @reay Another mobile adblocking approach worth noting: you can run a "VPN" app that is actually not connecting to any remote server, instead it's just running all network traffic through an adblocking filter on your phone. In some ways this isn't as powerful as an in-browser blocker, but it also lets you block ads when the app in question doesn't offer such niceties!

The one I've been using myself is AdAway, but I'm sure others exist for Android and iOS too:
https://adaway.org/

AdAway

AdAway is a free and open source ad blocker for Android. Block ads system-wide using hosts file or VPN-based filtering. No root required.

AdAway

@keithzg @reay oh that's clever.

i used pihole for a long while but then something happened and i took it down and never got it back up. didn't even consider that there might be more on-device options now

@keithzg @reay
DuckDuckGo's btowserfor android does the same. I use that when not actually on a VPN.

The CEO of DDG actually answered my question on Twitter that they are the ones maintaining the F-Droid version too. This was like, 3 days before some shit hit the fan, so I wonder what he was doing answering rando's questions, but hey.

Justin Fitzsimmons Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl at least a couple years, I'm sorry to say.

Brianary Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl
#FirefoxMobile used to support (with some caveats) the whole Firefox plugin ecosystem, before Mozilla forced their separation. It was pretty disappointing to lose that.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/14/23831094/firefox-android-open-extension-support

Océan Aug 29, 2023

@brianary @tarajdactyl it will be the case before the end of the year

Firefox’s Android app is getting proper support for extensions once again

Firefox’s Android app will soon support an “open ecosystem of extensions” allowing users to customize the browser with a wide range of third-party addons.

The Verge

Brianary Aug 29, 2023

@ocean
@tarajdactyl
That's great news!

Stone Bear Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl This is actually a brand new feature. Thanks for the reminder, I gotta git me some of that goodness.... (I saw the announcement on the _desktop_ update....)

ijo Stella Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl fun fact: you can very easily block ads systemwide on a dns level on all android phones with android 9 or up. takes a single change in the system settings, no apps to install or anything, and pretty much all ads are gone immediately

luna the doggie

Aug 29, 2023

@stella @tarajdactyl this is good but it's not perfect, you can't do cosmetic filtering which adblock extensions can do, so it's best to use both

ijo Stella Aug 29, 2023

@lunareclipse @tarajdactyl sure! but its extremely easy to do, works across all apps, and doesnt require installing any particular apps, so you definitely should do it

Jes Moved to @[email protected]Aug 29, 2023

@stella @tarajdactyl my personal favorite ad/malware block for android is base.dns.mullvad.net
they have further blocks if you want to ban porn or gambling or social media sites.
https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/

DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS - Guides | Mullvad VPN

Our public DNS service

Mullvad VPN

@stella yeah i had a pihole set up for a long time. didn't realize there were public services for this. I'm a little skeptical of what they are collecting but then again i think currently i have the default Google dns 😅😅😅😅

I'll give that a shot!

ijo Stella Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl there is at least one dns provider that im aware of that promises no logging and uses FOSS software. https://libredns.gr/

still some amount of trust necessary ofc but better than google :p

LibreDNS

a public encrypted DNS service, that people can use to maintain secrecy of their dns traffic, but also circumvent censorship.

LibreDNS

Rairii Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl mobile firefox is afaik the only mobile browser you can install ublock origin on

congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000

Jes Moved to @[email protected]Aug 29, 2023

@Rairii @tarajdactyl you can install it on kiwi browser, and adblock plus on samsung internet

Rairii Aug 29, 2023

@Jessica @tarajdactyl yeah, but adblock plus isn't a real adblocker (no ads are acceptable)

Chris Real Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl I'm still trying to find out why neither Firefox nor DuckDuckGo's browser will let me save pages for offline reading. Any thoughts?

@_chris_real no idea, I've never tried to do that

Chris Real Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl
It's useful when you don't want your articles fractured by a constant stream of adds while you read them.

Also, when you can't get any bars on your connection, you can still finish reading it

Ellie 🏴🏳️‍⚧️Aug 29, 2023

@_chris_real @tarajdactyl idk if that's what you're looking for but on firefox for android you can tap the three dots in the toolbar, then the share button and then at the bottom of the share dialog there's an option to download as pdf.

Chris Real Aug 29, 2023

@31113 @tarajdactyl Thx!

Michael ☕️Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl
Blokada can block many ads in apps other than the browser, as well.

FortunateFool 🧊🦐Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl a decade at least

Chad McCullough Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl Wait! I didn't know this, either!

Aylin Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl Realised this literally two days ago as well.

fanf42 Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @Quenby I don't remember not having ublock on Firefox mobile, so a lot of time. Iirc, it was at some point the only existing plugin (perhaps it needed to enable a dev option though)

Floaty Birb Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan its so beautiful

LiteralGrill Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan How does one code that into a site because I LOVE that!

Stefan Bohacek Aug 29, 2023

@literalgrill @tarajdactyl Right now this exists as a WordPress plugin, but I will look into making a non-WordPress version:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/detect-missing-adblocker/

Detect Missing Adblocker

Warn your website's visitors if they don't have an adblocker enabled.

WordPress.org

The Doctor Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan It seems to FP if you use Blokada or a Pi-Hole.

Stefan Bohacek Aug 29, 2023

@drwho @tarajdactyl Thank you for reporting this, I am looking into similar issues.

Ridley Kemp Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan

This is one of the best things I've ever seen. Thank you both!

Raymond Evolving Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan ha! I'm tapping "Close" on the image 🙄

Michael Vilain Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan I asked my friends if I should put this on my site. They thought it was obnoxious and had to much of a MOM vibe.

phecda Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan I should add something like this to my website once I get the motivation to get it back up. This is great.

Wolf480pl Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan
reminds me of an old proof-of-concept of mine
https://wolf480.pl/w/tos-js/

tos.js - the anti-javascript ToS checker

Kevin Karhan

Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan yeah...

Consider using #Firefox instead of #Chrome!

@kkarhan @stefan i do?

Jesse Spielman Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan this reminds me of those whitehats in the early 2000s writing viri to patch the holes they exploited!

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan this is deeply funny

Krijn Soeteman 🎙 🏳️‍🌈Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan Interesting! Funnily enough I use Privacy Badger (from @eff ) which is technically not an adblocker (but blocks most ads because they cross script). And I use Firefox (with Enhanced Tracking Protection) but your site still advises me an adblocker. Do I need another one?

lars Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan Shouldn't a good adblocker be transparent and therefore undetectable for the website?

Григорий Клюшников Aug 29, 2023

lars, it's kinda impossible to build an undetectable ad blocker. If an ad fails to load, this affects the page layout, and that can be detected from JS by checking the sizes of the elements and/or traversing the DOM tree. Also onload/onerror events for ad-related scripts. Also the absence of global variables these scripts define. And simplest of them all — just try to load a URL that has ad-related words in it and see whether the request fails.

lars Aug 29, 2023

@grishka @tarajdactyl I guess as an #AdBlocker developer I'd create a shadow DOM tree that behaves exactly the same as in a non-blocking browser but runs in a sandboxed environment and is never shown to the user. You then can selectively copy elements to the real DOM tree that is actually displayed and compress the layout if possible.

P4 Aug 29, 2023

@ls @tarajdactyl @stefan it doesn't need to actually detect the adblocker, you just need to get the adblocker to treat the warning like an ad and remove it from the page.

Stefan Bohacek Aug 29, 2023

@p4 @ls @tarajdactyl Yep, this is how it's meant to work.

Trash Panda Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan
Oh my god.
@dushman we need this

Sven Michels Aug 29, 2023

@tarajdactyl @stefan and in case someone is looking for more information with an adblocker enabled, check his blog post: https://stefanbohacek.com/project/detect-missing-adblocker-wordpress-plugin/ :)

Detect Missing Ad-blocker WordPress plugin | Stefan Bohacek

Provide a more secure experience to your website’s visitors.