If Mozilla killed andblocking extensions I’d switch to Helium Browser in a heartbeat since they’re maintaining manifest v2 support for uBO and even ship it OOTB.
The web is unusable without a proper Adblock.
It's a privacy nightmare as well. Few people reason how much data they give away to a host of shady companies just by letting ads display.
There is server-side now (and previously) hosted by the site owner.
It’s a lost cause to fight this. I admire you all for using FF because uBO just for the experience, but it’s only a partial data block. Serverside and thumbprinting- you can’t be anonymous even with Tor, VPN, etc.
Imagine all the data Cloudflare vacuums.
(JS has few good uses, but is too excessive. Less code is always better - and an art.)
(- it's kind of behavior extension on tag level, yet has JS - and it's orthogonal, like CSS or XSLT (BTW. see that hack: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245159), unlike JS which is.. untamed and invasive; i.e. there is video (any) tag but you could (+)DIY not touching the document - like custom playing with MPlayer or VLC as a plugin there for all AV formats or sorting filtering editing whatever, all aside custompacks? :)
- or, what about the other way, like a firewall ??
Right, that could be nice use of AI to extract only the good parts - or, at least, to adjust the rules for https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/requestcontro... by function.
There are community-made forks which fix the cookies problem, like nuTensor.
Not my experience at all. I run uMatrix on every computer I have and it is awesome. Still annoyed it was replaced by uBo which is quite good, but nowhere as nice as uMatrix. Luckily uMatrix still works great.
I wish they'd just scrap the uBo interface and replace it with the uMatrix interface which is far superior.
By the way, I realized that most of the tabs where I'm logged into something run inside their own tab container, so that limits the damage that any bug on handling cookies can do.
[0] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate...
Unusable for the commenter perhaps, based on his choices, but not unusable in an absolute sense
For example, I have been using the web without an adblock for several decades.^1 I see no ads
Adblocking is only necessary when one uses a popular graphical web browser
When I use an HTTP generator and a TCP client then no "adblock" is necessary
When I use a text-only browser then no "adblock" is necessary
Websites that comprise "the web" are only one half of the ad delivery system
The other half is the client <--- user choice
Firefox is controlled and distribuited by an entity that advocates for a "healthy online advertising ecosystem" and sends search query data to an online advertising services company called Google in exchange for payment. Ex-Mozilla employees left to join Google and start another browser called "Chrome"
These browsers are designed to deliver advertising. That's why an "adblock" extension is needed
When one uses a client that is not controlled and distributed by a company that profits from advertising services, that is not designed to deliver advertising, then an "adblock" may not be needed. I also control DNS and use a local forward proxy
The web is "usable" with such clients. For example, I read all HN submissions using clients that do not deliver or display ads. I am submitting this comment without using a popular graphical web browser
1. Obviously there are some exceptions, e.g., online banking, e-commerce, etc. For me, this is a small minority of web usage
The web is usuable with a variety of clients, not only the ones designed to deliver ads
So you browser as if it were 1999? Yup, no ads back then.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_blocking#History
[2] https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/exhibitions/web-banners-in-t...
I even still use the original line mode browser and other utilties in the 1995 w3c-libwww from time to time
The "modern" protocols are handled by the local forward proxy not the client
TLS1.3, HTTP/2, QUIC, etc.
You know that your long-winded and patronizing response in no way is a solution to the problem that you claim it is for the audience you're talking about.
Why do you pawn off an obviously non-solution as a solution? What does this get you?
If you’re happy with it, carry on. But you are using the equivalent of an ad blocker.
There are some web users who are online 24/7
There are others who may prefer to stay offline
A wide variety of people use the web for a wide variety of purposes
HN commenters are a tiny sliver of "all users" and "all purposes"
As such, HN commenters are not qualified to opine on behalf of "almost all users" as almost all users do not comment on HN or elsewhere on the web. Almost all users prefer to express their opinions about the web, if any, offline
I make HTTP requests with a TCP client
There are no "false positives"
I only request the resources that I want, e.g., the HTML from the primary domain, JSON from the API domain, etc.
I also use custom filters written in C to extract the information I want from the retreived HTML or JSON and transform it into SQL or "pretty print"
There is nothing to "block" because I'm not using software that automatically tries to request resources I do not want from domains I never indicated I wanted to contact
Now I'm back to Firefox again and nothing has died so far.
whenever i'm off my home wifi network, i have wireguard configured to connect home and get me that ad blocking. it's so nice.
yes, i prefer to use brave for personal stuff and i use edge for work stuff (reasons,,, don't ask)
These days I’m using AdGuard on iOS and ublock origin with Firefox on everything else.
It amazes me that every link the kid's school sends is a tracking link, and not always the same tracker.
And yet somehow most people in the world use it every day without an adblocker...
Yeah but they haven't and they're not going to, so what's the point of fantasizing about what you would do in that situation? It's like tough guy syndrome, where a person constantly fantasizes about what they would do in the imaginary situation where one of their friends or family is disrespected, or doomsday preppers who spend their life imagining what they would do in an apocalypse that never comes.
That stuff belongs on archiveofourown.com, not news.ycombinator.com.
And for the record, as a Firefox user, count me in with the others who would switch and just use Safari on my Mac if they went through with it!
I think the only person fantasizing here is you, about what random strangers on discussion forums do all day when not responding directly to topics at hand.
I'm all for fanfiction, but as I noted before, it seems that these days archiveofourown.com is where people publish that stuff, not Hacker News. It's easy to sign up and if your fiction is creative people will give you positive reviews. But you might need to spice it up by implying a conspiracy to cooperate with Google or something.