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Comment by thisisthenewme | Hacker News Reader

FWIW, Firefox and uBlock on my Android phone will always keep me on that ecosystem. My desire to go into the Apple ecosystem (because of supposed privacy protections) faded as soon as I learned I can't really have a good ad blocking solution there.

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> FWIW, Firefox and uBlock on my Android phone will always

uBlock was the original name for the add-on that subsequently was ethically compromised/"sold out to" advertisers

uBlock Origin is the 2nd version written by the original author (gorhill) and is not compromised.

Just wasn't sure which you are talking about

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but when I search for "uBlock" on Firefox's Add-ons, only uBlock Origin comes up in the first 6 pages. It looks like it's still available (and even "Featured") in the Chrome ecosystem, but in the context of Firefox it's no longer ambiguous which one they're referring to.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?page=1&q=ub...

It's good to know people are unlikely to get the wrong one.

It's still called uBlock Origin, and in general I don't think keeping track contextually of when you can get away with a name collision is a great way to do things, and this is an area of privacy concern so I think many of the people interested in the space would like to remain educated about it.

I'm using Orion on iOS which has native ad blocking and supports a good number of Chrome and Firefox extensions. Even without uBO I have a virtually ad-free experience.

https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#safari

Every browser on iOS pretending not to be Safari is also huge no.

Orion on iOS is not a Safari reskin. It uses WebKit, but the similarities end there.

More specifically it uses WKWebView. You can’t compile WebKit yourself to include in an app, which means less flexibility than non-iOS WebKit apps and Chromium forks. Their complaint is valid (“reskinned safari” is just a casual way of saying this)

If it uses webkit, then it 100% is a Safari reskin.

How is adding ad-blocking a reskin?

Again: every browser on iOS is a Safari reskin because it cannot be otherwise. Safari and WebKit are essentially the same thing (download WebKit on Mac to find out)

Only “remote browsers” like Opera Mini can currently use something other than the system’s webview.

I’m super impressed with orion as well. I use an iPad and Orion provides a decent support (still a WIP though) for Firefox/chrome desktop extensions to run in iOS. After Reddit axed third party support, I almost stopped browsing Reddit until I found out I can run RES with old.reddit inside Orion. This has been an absolute game changer for me.

I’m not saying that it’s as good technically, but I use AdGuard for Safari together with NextDNS and it seems to do the trick. Probably just using NextDNS would go a long way.

Is AdGuard a proprietary product? I recall looking into it and being a bit turned off once I learned it's not FOSS.

Most repos here show GPLv3 as the license: https://github.com/AdguardTeam

I'd be delighted to be mistaken, because Safari on iPhone sucks with all the ads.

the iOS one is closed. Linux and browser exts are open.

Could you possibly be referring to the AdguardForiOS code with the GPLv3 license?

https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardForiOS/blob/master/COP...

Huh, I didn't know. But it seems like the repo lags behind what's on the appstore by two minor versions.

Honestly, no idea.

I use these:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Adblock/comments/koowte/encrypted_d...

I like how I don’t need a separate app (just install the profile) but I do wonder if I need to implicitly trust the website that has the profiles for download.

So far so good though.

I use the mullvad ones. Sometimes it breaks public wifi signins, so I switch to a less restrictive one in those situations (usually CIRA, which is the Canadian domain registrar)

The really nice thing about DNS profiles is that they’re system wide, so it works against in-app ads too.

What Adblock features are missing on iOS?

Browser extensions, which can block HTML elements based on arbitrary selectors rather than just origin domain.

Safari does actually support CSS selectors in its content blocking API. However, see my other comment on this very subthread, it's nowhere near enough and is trivial for ads to bypass.

iOS (and macOS Safari) only has the stupid "declarative blocking" functionality which is trivial for ads to bypass. In addition, it often breaks websites because it can't inject runtime code (like uBlock filters can) to substitute malicious JS payloads with neutered versions that still expose the same API so the rest of the JS doesn't error out.

In theory you are right, in practice it works just as well.

No, it really does not. My iPad with safari and safari filters next to my android with firefox + ublock is nowhere near as comprehensive. Even news websites sneak ads into safari.

Got any example urls handy? I’m using AdGuard and i just don’t recall getting ads anywhere i visit. I’m interested to see if any slip through.

The only exception i can recall right now was youtube but SponsorBlock does great there in Safari.

That depends a lot on the site. It works well on some, but on others it's just not enough.

Safari/iOS blocking is closer to uBlock Origin than to DNS blocking, but is not as powerful as uBO and some sites "exploit" those limitations.

That’s false. iOS has had full-fledged extensions for years now. Nothing stops uBO from existing on Safari other than stubbornness.

Most serious iOS content blockers ship both a native list (or multiple) and an active counterpart, usually focusing on YouTube ads.

However I am aware that adblocking is still poor on Safari, maybe nobody just can match uBO

You are mistaken. Safari removed the APIs necessary for an uBlock port (there used to be one), see https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158.

Injecting code via Web Extensions is too late for reliable blocking - by then, either the malicious JS you are trying to defuse has already ran (if it wasn't blocked declaratively), or if not then the rest of the page's JS depending on it has already exploded and "fixing" it after the fact (by substituting a neutered shim via Web Extensions) doesn't fix the rest of the page.

there are many good ad blocking solutions on desktop and mobile safari.

They are equivalent to "Manifest V3" blockers (like this one). It's nowhere as good as original uBlock Origin.

No, there are full ad blocker solutions on iOS: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html

Mh yeah I am on iOS and at home I have pihole and on the road I have mullvad with ad/tracking/etc. blocking, and can't complain, I never see ads, I think right now all use the same adblock lists more or less so staying in a ecosystem for that seems, I mean everyone do their choices, but there are harder things to overcome

brave supports the ublock filters

So you’re trading in (supposed) privacy protection for a couple less ad impressions or broken site visits?

I mean, to each their own principles but…

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