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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

What's the two-word summary of why I'd want to use this app over one of the other content blockers?

Again, can't sum up in two words, but can sum it up in two points. This would be better because:

* It's by Mozilla, and it's more likely (probability wise) to be maintained and kept up-to-date than those that happen to be a single person's hobby project.

* I believe that big players in the web like Mozilla and EFF (eff.org) really fight for us, the common people. :) The more these things become popular, especially from bigger names, the better the chances of the whole ad-tracker-privacy ecosystem to improve for our good.

The "two word" thing is a joke, but your two points are pretty good. The combination of "maintained by decently large organization" and "non-evil" is probably unique in this space.

> more likely (probability wise) to be maintained

Mozilla is starting to develop a bad track record on this recently.

Reminds me of the arguments against the CA ecosystem in favor of browser cert pinning. It's much easier to trust Mozilla (or Google, or whomever else) than to trust the fifty-odd root CAs installed on my computer, and all their granted intermediates.

what about besides "known household name"? any technical merit? anything you know you do better than the alternative, for a fact?

and in the process of fairness, any other blocker doing anything better that you plan to add to yours?

Technical merit? I don't really know. This is based on the open source tracker list from Disconnect (disconnect.me).

FWIW, I was never into paying for an ad-blocker on iOS since that comes with its pitfalls. I have tried a couple of other free ones, and I did like Adblock Fast [1], the one I was using until Focus by Firefox and the one I still have. It's open source and is available for Chrome (not iOS), Opera (not iOS) and Safari (iOS 9). I'd suggest reading through the GitHub page to see some stats as well as the philosophy (of not making money or compromising it with acceptable ads). [2]

[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-fast/id1032930802

[2]: https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast

I always used someonewhocares.org host list on my wireless modems to protect my IOS devices (which never leave the house anyway, since they exist only to test apps/sites for people like you that do not value device ownership :)

the list that site provides blocks practically every single ad, malware, etc. But it is not very practical to keep up to date.

authority, ambition

can't do a two word, but you don't have to worry about maintainer accepting $$ to allow certain ads through, as has happened with at least one other iOS content blocker

"credible nonprofit"

Upvote for rising to my absurd challenge and making a decent argument too.

How about: "Reliable curation"

"It's free!"

That's certainly an item in the "pro" column, but there are lots of other free ones out there.

If someone were to gain some traction in this space I would prefer it to be a credible organisation.

I long thought that this should be driven by a foundation , rather than a private enterprise, but I wanted the additional benefit of delegating the profits to a particular donation.

The hooks are implemented by Apple and the data is crowd sourced. I don't see any reason why anyone should profit in this space.

"I don't see any reason why anyone should profit in this space."

Because there's still work in putting it together and maintaining it? And because profiting from doing this means they're less likely to take money from an ad company?

If it were anything other than Mozilla, wouldn't that be a Con? Because then it'd be more likely that the maintainer would take money to let ads by.

Well... One of the best selling paid versions, Crystal, is going to allow companies to pay for "acceptable ads."

Personally, I think the people who paid for blockers were ripped off, there's nothing special or difficult in building a content blocker:

1. The majority of the value, the blocking list, it readily available and actively maintained.

2. Performance and integration into iOS is provided by Apple, you simply produce a format that Apple approves.

So what are you paying for? Marketing, packaging, and giving a 3rd party control?

So why should anyone make a content blocker, unless they're someone with a mission to do so, like Mozilla or the EFF?

I get the feeling that you have some deep seated capitalistic ideals. Do you do anything that you can't make money from?

I can think of a few reasons to make a content blocker:

1. Improve privacy for users on the Internet.

2. Decrease cost and speed for people who pay for data, or have bad connections.

3. Challenge revenue streams of large corporations.

4. Fame.

5. Improve strangers lives.

Those are good reasons. But I don't see anything about why one shouldn't be paid for it.

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