Hacker News Reader

Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I'm tempted to move from Android to an Apple phone partly for that reason.

I'm tired of the endless android situations where an app seems to be able to do whatever regardless of permissions... and permissions can't really be managed anyway. I also don't belive Google will ever get a handle on those permissions / privacy, they just don't care to.

It doesn't help that google killed the nexus line and now we have pixels that are premium priced anyway so I may as well consider Apple where I didn't before.

The camera is also a big deal to me so a lot of the "hey it's not a pixel but" options just don't do it for me.

View on HN

The ability to install an ad blocker natively on the default browser is the reason I switched, and cannot stand androids anymore (after 5 android phones previously).

You can install system-wide adblockers on Android. This is not possible with iOS without running a separate proxy server like pi-hole.

If you jailbreak it iirc though

No "jailbreak" required on Android. Just implement the VpnService API. https://github.com/blokadaorg/blokada/blob/master/app/src/ma...

You can do this on iOS as well, but not for App Store apps.

So if you rebuild every week or pay Apple a yearly fee for the privilege of blocking ads on your own phone.

Unfortunately your only option is to pay Apple, since you cannot develop VPN extensions on a free account.

It's surprising to me that an easy-to-use set of scripts to do this for you hasn't popped up (to my knowledge). When Apple initially offered the "zero cost but you have to rebuild every week" solution, I was sure there'd be an idiot-proof solution to make that seamless within a few days.

Cydia Impactor can do this on-device, IIRC. But you still need to launch the app.

What are you using to block ads?

I'm using Purify, but here's a 2018 thread on other available blockers: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/8bo5v9/best_ad_blocker...

Some it appears also does some dns trickery to disable ads in apps.

On Android, you can set Firefox as the default browser and configure uBlock as an add-on.

Default browser doesn't effect in-app browser frames which are becoming more and more common - half of webpages will be in chrome anyway.

I believe you can swap out the system webview as well?

Firefox Focus shipped with GeckoView[1] only yesterday.

[1] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/

System-wide VPN ad blockers work in WebViews.

Edit: this actually became a bit off topic..

I say this as an old apple fanboy. The apple products are by far the best privacy wise, but I recommend against them anyway. I like Mac os, but feel I can't pay apple any more money.

I have repaired enough phones and computers to recommend people to not use apple. Unless you there is a class action lawsuit they won't extend warranty, even for obviously faulty products.

The last 2 years I have fixed more than 5 broken macbooks that Apple refused to fix for less than $400 with 10 minute solder jobs, and I'm just a hobbyist helping friends. Two of them were fixing issues that Apple had already "fixed" by doing what could be called the worst solder jobs of the century (one was actually just using a rubber pad to push a chip in place instead of doing a proper resolder. According to the guy linked later in this post this was apples official fix :( :( :( ...)

Don't take my word for it, though:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=0s&index=3&list=...

I really haven't had much better support on my boot loop 5x... granted I love the 5x's size and form factor.

Manuy manufacturers have followed apples lead (soldered SSDs and batteries and devices that won't open).

I wouldn't go for those devices either. The Nexus 5 (not s. I don't know that one) is very easy to open and replace parts in (at least as far as phones go),but finding someone that can properly diagnose it and fix it can be hard.

I duno, it's not like android devices were known for long warranties and service before apple... many were lucky to get a major firmware update at all...

Of course not, but for bigger brands and popular models repair shops can actually keep official parts in-store, something that Apple don't allow (even for apple stores).

I am not saying that andoid is all roses, but many devices are still realpairable even though things are going in the wrong direction.

When an iPhones warranty is up, apple has been trying their hardest to make fixing your device impossible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com