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Comment by geokon | Hacker News Reader

I think it'd be nice to have a browser option where it simply won't load content from outside of the current domain. Though at the moment that would break a lot of the web, it'd be a much more neutral solution. To me what's more alarming than Facebook is what percentage of websites load fonts/js/analytics from Google (even Freedesktop.org did till I pointed it out on their mailist). They don't get a referral link (I think?) but they still effectively know when you're online or not

Apple blacklisting sites/companies is honestly more scary... that's basically anti-net-neutrality.. if you're naughty (or Apple doesn't like you) you can't have your images loaded?

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> I think it'd be nice to have a browser option where it simply won't load content from outside of the current domain.

Take a look at uMatrix[0]. With the two rules

* * * block

* 1st-party * allow

you'll achieve what you want.

> To me what's more alarming is what percentage of websites load js from Google

That's where the Decentraleyes[1] plugin comes in handy. It injects a locally cached version of 3rd party cdn libraries. To use it easily in conjunction with uMatrix, you'll need some more rules that you can find in the FAQ[2].

[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/

[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...

[2]: https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes/wiki/Frequently-As...

Decentraleyes is fantastic. Makes the internet way more usable from China.

But I guess my point was that if Apple crammed a first-party-only system down our throats and 20-30% of the population was forced into this new paradigm - then that would make websites change and the internet would change in its nature. If I use uBlock.. well then I just make my life irritating :)

Umatrix does a significant portion of what you desire. You can set global rules, so I always block Facebook. I have a separate browser for stuff like banking where I don't want to break the websites by blocking JS.

As to your second point, I think there's a huge, gaping chasm between apple blocking Facebook's tracking and the collapse of civilization at the hands of apple's alleged anti net neutrality.

> simply won't load content from outside of the current domain

This would be a very bad idea!

First because it will break a lot of legit use-cases: CDNs, distributed architectures, SSO, payment gateways, ...

Second because it won't actually prevent the tracking: it would be easy to make a subdomain and point it to Google Analytics or any ad network to "re-enable".

> Second because it won't actually prevent the tracking: it would be easy to make a subdomain and point it to Google Analytics or any ad network to "re-enable".

How many sites would do that though?

When there's money involved? All of them?

Probably everybody that utilize tracking in their business model...

> I think it'd be nice to have a browser option where it simply won't load content from outside of the current domain.

Firefox does have that as an option hidden in about:config ("privacy.firstparty.isolate").

> I think it'd be nice to have a browser option where it simply won't load content from outside of the current domain. Though at the moment that would break a lot of the web

I have been using RequestPolicy Firefox extension for that for years. You can manually approve domains (ex. let website X load stuff from domain Y as well), so once you figure out which of the dozen other domains it tries to connect to is serving static content (CSS, images) it works great.

Unfortunately, new Firefox broke this, so you can only use it with Firefox ESR currently.

>that's basically anti-net-neutrality

Net neutrality is about access to internet, not what your browser and/or software supports. An ad blocker certainly isn't anti net neutrality.

There would be a ton of problems with that. E.g. PCI essentially requires credit card forms be served by a different domain now, so you'd lose the ability to use credit cards online.

Firefox Focus can block web fonts on iOS. It can also act as a content blocker.

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