corbinHere's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers)
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I didn’t even click the article. Here’s Why -
Scotty_TreesThey only have 40 posts so I gave them a follow. It’s when accounts have like 10k posts and an account is less than a year old that I won’t follow them, I don’t need that noise.
Sparky
Eh, on Linux, it’s probably in your package manager, and likely already installed. Just be careful with Ubuntu since they use snaps.
Be careful?
Firefox auto-updates with the snap version, whereas it doesn’t with most package manager versions. So if it updates while you’re using it, it won’t let you open new tabs without restarting it (Firefox, not the machine), which can interrupt your workflow. On other distros, that only happens when installing updates manually, which isn’t an issue because you’re aware of it.
This is second hand info though since I don’t use Ubuntu, so YMMV.
Nonsense like this is why I no longer use Ubuntu (or anything else downstream of Canonical, or anything with Snaps).
nix run nixpkgs#firefox
www.waterfox.com
A really good chrome clone using Firefox. It’s my go-to browser.
Only issue is that it’s a little slower to update than Firefox direct.
floorp.app
Been lovin this fork solely because the vertical tab bar integration is awesome.
Run a pihole or similar
Your web browser is just one piece of software on your network capable of displaying ads and collecting data
paraphrandThat’s reminds me, I should go update mine.
I’m only familiar with pi holes on a cursory level, but you have to update them manually? This is a bit of a turn off.
You could schedule it with cron. You usually don’t need to update the lists very often though, and you don’t want to either as you’re just wasting the bandwidth of the hosts of the lists, who aren’t making any money off hosting them.
Network-level adblock cannot replace browser-level adblock and vice versa
ddhBoth… both is good
I’m a bit clueless when it comes to that but certainly interested. Could you maybe go into more detail as to which hardware and software is needed to set that up?
Thanks much in advance!
So the main software is here pi-hole.net (and they have good documentation, so I’m not going to repeat the nitty-gritty here)
You obviously need something to run it on, which could be some existing computer that’s always on, but (as the name might suggest) a lot of people use some form of Raspberry Pi (or similar) single-board computer.
Pihole will run on basically anything, so you can get an ancient pi and it will still run fine
I thought this requires permission to a router. Can you do this say at an dorm or apartment where internet is provided for you through a portal
You can always configure the DNS manually on a device you own to ignore the DHCP settings sent from the router and just go directly to the pihole, obviously not as good as it happening automatically, but a good workaround if that’s not possible
PotatoesFallAnother user commented that you can run Unbound (the technology used by pihole) on your machine.
Even easier, configure your device to use an ad block DNS resolver. Control D has free ones: controld.com/free-dns
What a garbage article. Chock full of google propaganda and fear mongering.
What’s Google?
A misspelling of googol, which means 10^100^.
What specifically is “google propaganda and fear mongering” in the article?
Mentions UBlock seems.to be fast and safe, but that the API used lets extensions look at everything you do amd can dramatically affect browser speed.
Except the part where it didn’t imply that at all?
That performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization (uBO has an explainer wiki page), but there were probably other extensions not doing that well. It’s not hard to see a situation where multiple poorly-optimized extensions installed using the Web Request API could dramatically slow down Chrome, and the user would have no way of knowing the issue.
DeebsterThat performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization […], but there were probably other extensions not doing that well.
The article goes out of its way to not do what you’re accusing it of. I don’t understand how you’ve managed to read the article as having the opposite slant as what it actually does.
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case: Google knows as well as I do that a total crackdown would give governments like the European Union and United States more ammo for antitrust lawsuits.
They do not care, never have, never will. Cost of operation.
It would also be a motivator for more people to switch browsers, which would weaken Google’s browser monopoly.
Not enough even care that would make noticable difference in market share.
A lot of people were upset 23 years ago when Windows ME removed real mode DOS, too.
And they all stopped using it, right? Right?
The new Declarative Net Request API is still a downgrade in capability compared to the older API, but the feature gap has closed significantly.
Chrome now allows extensions to include 100 rule lists, with up to 50 lists active at once. There are also additional filtering options, including an option to have case-insensitive rules, which cuts down on duplicates in filter lists. The maximum number of filter rules now varies by use case — an extension can now have up to 30,000 dynamic rules (filters downloaded by the extension) if they are deemed as “safe” (block, allow, allowAllRequests or upgradeScheme), an additional 5,000 other types of dynamic requests, and more filters included in the extension package.
for context, EasyList is just one of the lists enabled by default in uBlock Origin and other ad blockers, and it has over 75,000 rules.
Can you math? Feature gap almost same as before.
That’s up to 30K dynamic rules, at least 30K static rules, and at least 1K regex rules: developer.chrome.com/…/declarativeNetRequest#prop…
That seems like it’s fine for general use, and those limits might go up again. EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format, and there’s probably some dead rules in there. uBlock Origin on Firefox will definitely be more versatile moving forward, but every time I’ve used uBlock Origin Lite in Chrome it’s almost the same experience.
Why even make limit at all? Should not have any.
EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format
Source? Or you just assume they can? What about specific list? List by small maintainer?
Not convinced feature gap any better yet just by slightly higher number and not said real number and vague „can compress list“.
Also, until Hill say satisfied with api or proven it enough to fight google head on in adblock war, not think good enough.
Seemed pretty level headed and surprisingly well written to me.
(and other browsers)
… that aren’t Firefox.
The article talks about Firefox too.
JeenauBlock Origin for Chrome has over 34 million installations according to the Chrome Web Store
Oh wow, that is very surprising to me. I somehow expected a billion of installations. Especially when I saw the screenshots without it in the article, how can anyone browse the web without it?
Lord WiggleThere are other ad block options. And there is Firefox. I use Vivaldi browser, it has a built-in ad blocker, just like many other browsers. I just wish Vivaldi would be Firefox based.
But Firefox has a installation base of 2.8% and Chrome 65%. The Firefox uBlock Origin installations are in my opinion statistically insignificant, so are Brave browser installations which are even lower.
Adblock users are still a statistical minority of web users. Most people don’t care (as evidenced by Netflix’s ad tier gaining subscribers every quarter) or don’t know those extensions exist.
chirospasmTL;DR use FF
Since January 2018, 42% of malicious extensions use the Web Request API.
That’s like making knifes illegal in general because they have been used in a certain amount of murder cases.
And now, a new golden age of malvertisement will emerge…
Indeed. What a f-ing stupid argument: “We cannot trust the extensions that the user installed, therefor we give malware from advertisers free roam!”
If 48% of crimes used a handgun, we should ban those too.
You just made the argument for gun rights.
Thank you and I love you. <3
You just made the argument for gun rights.
Definitely not. Gun ownership should be abolished like slavery was. A knife has good use for cutting and cooking, but a gun, especially in private hands, has absolutely no reason to exist.
a gun, especially in private hands, has absolutely no reason to exist
Americans phrase it a bit different:
‘Fuckin guns fuck yea!’
Yep. One of the many intellectual challenges that the US is facing…
UnderpantsWeevilGun ownership should be abolished like slavery was.
I’ve got some awful news for you about slavery
ExcrubulentSo you completely accept the state’s monopoly on violence, and you also don’t think farmers should be allowed to shoot pests?
This is a statement made by someone who lives in a political and ecological bubble.
So you completely accept the state’s monopoly on violence
Better than spreading this to everydays mass shooting event culprits, don’t you agree?
“Spreading”? It’s already spread.
Plus it’s kind of impossible to understand how you see police brutality and the way they responded to the George Floyd protests and think, “Yeah, these guys should be trusted with the only guns in existence.”
First: Is “every redneck yokel and his dumb brother is allowed to own an arsenal” in anyway better than a government monopoly in that regard?
Second: This would of course need properly selected and trained policemen, not those trigger-happy yokels that the US uses instead.
I come from a country like that too, but if you think police brutality doesn’t happen in your country then again: political bubble.
Go ahead, tell me what country you’re from and I’ll burst it for you.
I used to say the same thing about my country, Australia, where we’ve recently been imprisoning whistleblowers who expose clear government abuse.
There is no such thing as a state that can be trusted with violence. They always use it to oppress.
There is no such thing as a state that can be trusted with violence.
Oh, and trusting random yokels with violence is better?