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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I used a friend's phone to look at some website and was horrified that the website had added ads everywhere since the last time I visited! Then I noticed he was using Chrome, which doesn't have adblock, and apparently the web is just terrible.

Thank God for Firefox Mobile.

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Most people don't realise this, but on Android, setting private-dns [0] or using local VPN apps like blockada / dns66 or intra+nextdns [1] / intra+adguard-dns [2] would block ads even within apps, provided they aren't doing their own name resolution [3]. It allows one to use Chrome for websites that don't work well or at all with Firefox+plugins; in addition to helping bypass censorship.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208004

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788410

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19258717

I use those but don't like prefer them over uBlock, as the former approach is a bit more heavy-handed.

blockada is an amazing utility. I've missed it after going back to iPhone.

Not that its a deal breaker: Blockada doesn't yet do DoH, which limits its abilities to circumvent censorship.

In my experience they slow down browsing quite significantly, almost down to 2G speeds (may be a quirk of the Oxygen OS?) Thankfully Firefox Mobile with uBlock works fine.

Thanks for mentioning this. I had no idea Firefox Mobile supported add-ons even though I've been using it for a year.

I think add-ons only work on Android though, not iOS.

iOS has native Content Blockers though, so it’s not as bad, and actually quite battery-efficient!

Yeah, just browse to the addon page (e.g. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...) and click "add to Firefox", it works as usual. Not on iOS, though, since Apple doesn't allow real third-party browsers.

Apple does allow real third-party ad blockers though.

Depending on your opinion of content blockers, not on iOS.

The content blocking API it allows on iOS is significantly less restrictive than Chrome’s proposal

iOS / Safari / Content Blockers are not as full-featured as Android / Mobile Firefox / uBlock Origin, but I'm quite content with https://1blocker.com/ , it provides several lists (with a less stringent limit than the crippled webRequest API discussed here) of rules to pick from, and the possibility to create your own rules through a Safari extension.

there's lots of gold. eg the "oldreddit redirect", or "background video playback" addon is also nice. kind of a YouTube premium ersatz :)

I use Brave on my phone, a Chromium fork. It does not allow extensions but it has a built-in ad blocker and some privacy features.

Too bad they're trying to monetize it. The new Basic Attention Token icon in the URL bar takes up so much real estate that it's almost pointless to have a URL bar in the first place.

What? It's no bigger than any of the other icons and even that can be disabled. What are you seeing?

> I use Brave on my phone, a Chromium fork. It does not allow extensions but it has a built-in ad blocker and some privacy features.

And creates Facebook-style shadow profiles: https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870

HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

That's not even close to a facebook shadow profile. It was a way to donate to a public creator page. It didn't track anything.

They have also fixed the issues. The page makes it clear when someone has not opted in, and in that case it won't use profile images or names and the tip won't go through.

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019...

https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1085242421817102336

Seems I stand corrected. That's very good news (news to me, at least); thank you!

I hope they never backslide.

I used AdGuard and I don't see any ads in Chrome

https://adguard.com

Or you could use firefox and not see ads for free, AND communicate Google that what they're doing is unacceptable.

Google is an advertising company

from a recent Google SEC filing:

"New and existing technologies could affect our ability to customize ads and/or could block ads online, which would harm our business.

Technologies have been developed to make customizable ads more difficult or to block the display of ads altogether and some providers of online services have integrated technologies that could potentially impair the core functionality of third-party digital advertising. Most of our Google revenues are derived from fees paid to us in connection with the display of ads online. As a result, such technologies and tools could adversely affect our operating results."

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419...

actually the Adguard for Mac can work the same as Adguard on Android... so even when Google removes adblockers you can still block on network level (though not as good of course).

How trustworthy are they? I feel very iffy about sending my DNS queries to some random company in Moscow.

I personally use NetGuard which is free and open source. It works by setting up a vpn locally combined with a hosts file to send ad requests to a blackhole. This works on the Web and in apps. Follow this guide here: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md

What does AdGuard do that a host blocklist doesn't provide?

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