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Comment by close04 | Hacker News Reader

Except mobile browsers, arguably the most critical place where you need blocking to get any kind of reasonably decent experience (load times, viewable area, battery life, etc.).

Extensions like uBlock target people who don't want to bother with editing hosts files and keeping them updated.

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Firefox on Android supports extensions, including uBlockO, and it works perfectly. It can be set as the default browser and voilà, no more ads ever.

Agreed. My point was playing with hosts file is definitely not something easy on a mobile, or something most people would want to bother with. Especially when it comes to adding exceptions and getting some sites to work.

For computers and Android devices Firefox and uBO are far more capable solution than DNS blocking, at least when it comes to browsing.

I am writing this comment from Android Firefox with uBlock origin installed on it.

On iOS, you can use DNSCloak[1] which has recently been open-sourced[2]. You can either setup a DNS server (DoH or dnscrypt) somewhere that include these filters, or you can use in-app Blacklist functionality to block domain (although it needs domains only-type of block file, instead of host file, but converting them is quiet trivial).

[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dnscloak-secure-dns-client/i...

[2]: https://github.com/s-s/dnscloak

I use PiHole and firewall to manage adblocking at home, and uBlock on every device that supports it. uBlock is a far more effective solution than DNS based ones which is why I prefer to install Firefox+uBlock on Android than use hosts file.

I'll give DNSCloak for iOS a try, thanks for the recommendation.

If you use an Android browser that supports the Chrome Custom Tabs protocol [1] such as Lynket [2][3][4] it's possible replace the Chrome tab that appears when you click/tap a link with a completely differently browser such as Brave or Firefox (inc. Focus, Nightly or Preview). [5]

By doing this you inherit the features of the replacement browser like ad-blocking and tracking protection.

[1] https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/customtabs

[2] https://github.com/arunkumar9t2/lynket-browser

[3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=arun.com.chrom...

[4] https://medium.com/@arunkumar9t2/introducing-chromer-2-0-a-b...

[5] https://i.vgy.me/EWrVFa.jpg

I use such a host file on my android. There's even apps to manage them.

Needs a rooted device though.

That has the added benefit of removing ads in all apps, because when they can't be loaded, generally not even the empty widget shows.

You can use Blokada who block with DNS system without rooting.

That uses a VPN internally though, which comes with a decent amount of overhead.

See my comment above, you can use https://www.nextdns.io/

You can sign up at https://www.nextdns.io/ and then you can block ads at the DNS level. Simple to do, and updated, and without the overhead of running a local VPN.

I think that's a reason why DNS based ad-blocking is as effective a solution as any, though easily worked around against (I see that Amazon's android app is able to show ads despite DNS blacklist).

Mobile chrome did not support ad blocking extensions last time I checked

Mobile Firefox does. How is this not better known?

The best mobile Firefox feature never marketed by Mozilla at all.

I don't think it is certain to stay, as they seem to avoid commiting to the extension capability in their future Versions of Firefox for Android.

So AFAIK it might be that they want to get rid of it.

That isn't true.

It would be great if you were right, but I don't think you are. Do you have sources?

I got the idea from this [1] reddit comment made by someone with an Mozilla Employee flair:

> [...] There is not yet a concrete plan (feature) to bring Web Extensions to Fenix. That does not mean it is not going to happen. It does mean we have some things to figure out first.

and this [2] github issue where they state

> Not for MVP, will look at it for further versions

I fear that what they'll want to figure out first is whether not implementing them will hurt adoption.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/b4bhzs/will_firefo...

[2] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574

First of all, I am a Mozilla Employee.

Second, in that very github issue that you linked, look at this comment: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574#issuecomm.... Also, transition from Fennec to Fenix won't happen until feature parity. The MVP is just that, the MVP.

Finally, GeckoView does not use the WebView interface, specifically because we want to build richer experiences than the WebView interface offers.

> transition from Fennec to Fenix won't happen until feature parity

Thank you for the reply. It's really good news to hear that full extension capabilities will continue to be supported!

I was worried by the very comment you linked, as "users will get the experience they expect" sounds carefully crafted to not say anything at all.

A chromium fork named Kiwi supports extensions on Android! Thanks to this I can play youtube music in the background and have the fastest possible browser on Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwibrowse...

> The browser is not fully open source like open in open source. It is a common myth and misconception about Kiwi Browser.

https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android/issues/30

There's NewPipe at F-Droid for youtube music in the background and so much more.

Yep, but it's not only Kiwi. There is zero full open-source Chromium browsers for now (with reproducible builds, that's why no Chromium on F-Droid)

There's Chromium build at Bromite repository, but they both might be not exactly reproducible.

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