Brave has certainly said a lot of good things while doing quite [0] a lot [1] of bad [2] things [3] that make me think it's mostly just marketing to lower-knowledge users that's carrying it forward. I see so many 'privacy' influencers that recommend it and Chromium, and then Firefox with no mention of FOSS options like LibreFox, Tor Browser, IronFox, etc
Brave also has native rust based psudo reimplementation of ublock, so it also doesnt necessarily need the functionality to accomplish what most people end up needing it for.
What I like about uBO Lite in Safari is that I can use it without allowing it access to any of my data (it works in a purely declarative mode if you want). Even if it’s unlikely that uBO would be sold to a sketchy company, at least this provides protection against any supply chain attacks.
Regarding the cosmetic filtering and scriptlet injection, are these even relevant? Most uBO users already give full access to the extension, so they'll probably do the same to uBOL to (most permissions + complete filtering mode). So basically they will have these features anyway.
FYI uBlock Origin Lite on iOS is inferior to AdGuard and (I think) Wipr as it's just a WebExtension, so it'll only block ads within Safari itself.
AdGuard and Wipr use both the Web Extension and Content Blocker APIs, so they'll block ads in all web views system wide on top of within Safari itself.
However as far as trustworthiness goes, uBlock is (imo) #1.
wBlock by an MIT student is open source and seems (just!) about as trustworthy as uBlock, though of course without the track record. Light & fast, especially to update.
“wBlock runs entirely within Safari's content blocking API. There's no data collection, no tracking, and no system-level extensions that can monitor your browsing.“
It's funny to me that some find that narrative appealing.
Here's another narrative: Many of those MIT students go on to be SV founders and employees who build, operate, and make millions or billions from the mass surveillance and ad industry. And I'm sure some participated in FOSS in college - what better way to build your resume for the surveillance/ad industry?
(I'm not commenting on the wBlock developer; I think all such narratives are deceiving and should be ignored.)
Nice, last time I heard about wblock felt like years ago and I'm not sure why I didn't consider it.
These days I don't run on-device adblock, I just do DNS filtering for the most part but I'll check it out, not sure I wanna keep tunneling all my DNS queries to ControlD perpetually lol
I think Wipr is also very trustworthy. It’s developed by an indie dev who’s responsive over email, and gives you a lot for free. And it has a $5/yr subscription (or one time payment) that unlocks system-wide ad blocking, not just in web views.
I’ve found it to work exceptionally well after trying other free adblockers.
uBOL doesn't work in apps, it works only in Safari, it's a pure browser extension, the "app" part of uBOL is an Apple requirement just for the sake of installing the extension.
Copied from #408:
uBOL will stay a webextensions-based browser extension, I do not plan to go further than this, I do not have the time and motivation to take on more work than I already do.
What people may ask though is that Apple maybe supports webextensions in WebApp, if that is possible at all.
I hope this changes, it’s what keeps me on AdGuard :-/
I have been happy with my workaround for this issue which is using uBOL along side the AdGuard content blocker extensions (main AdGuard web extension disabled).
Also, if you use Orion Browser, they did implement the full Manifest v2 extension spec on top of WebKit, which lets you use full uBlock origin directly.
This is why I started using the Orion browser. It's not perfect, I've had a few freezes and occasional weird behavior but well within the "tolerable" range for me, and not noticably worse than the glitches that any ad blocker causes on some sites.
This is not a true uBlock Origin. It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework, but is nowhere near as capable as actual UBO.
Yes, in practice I have noticed no difference between uBO and uBOL. The only thing I've seen it not block are Twtich ads which the normal uBO doesn't block anyway.
There are probably additional things behind the scenes just due to the limitations of uBOL but you again in practice don't see it.
Technically, Firefox Focus (a separate browser for iOS) includes an adblocker feature that can be applied system wide via iOS's content blockers subsystem. This was released in the late 2010s.
Firefox including it is likely just reducing the steps required.
What Orion's doing is horribly hacky and prone to cause issues with a multitude of addons, and of course Mozilla shouldn't bow to Apple's incredibly anti-competitive behavior.
You pay apple for a phone that can act more-or-less as a general purpose computer with apps. Apple should let you install the apps you want, and that they don't do so is insulting.
The fact that the EU and Japan ruled it illegal, and Apple responded by only changing it in those two countries instead of all countries is doubly insulting.
Not only that, but the "entitlement" (Apple lingo for code-signature flag that grants capabilities) needed to publish a browser effectively requires to be an established company, ensuring hobbyists can't really get there with an open-source project even though the sources of Firefox are available and could technically be ported.
It goes well beyond requiring an established company. It's so onerous that no company has yet successfully navigated all the gates required - even Google. Apple is maliciously complying with the EU's Digital Rights Act, and many years later, the EU has not concluded its investigations. I am incredibly disappointed.
Are they? I've built a few Firefox extension and I cannot recall any part of the API that is Gecko-specific. While parts of the API aren't entirely browser-agnostic, they definitely seem to be engine-agnostic.
True, but I don't see how that answers the original question of "why does Firefox not support extensions on iOS?". Clearly extensions can run on WebKit. I assume it has much more to do with Apple restrictions rather than with the fact addons are built for Gecko.
The law that requires allowing alternative browsers, the DMA, applies to the entire EU.
But I believe there are still zero third party browsers, to publish their browser in the EU Mozilla need an EU development team because developers outside the EU are unable to install it, and Mozilla cannot publish it as their existing app. Enforcement is taking years.
Their approach yielded arguably the least exploitable general purpose computing devices that people ever actually wanted, without making people feel they were crippled, in a market where there are thousands of alternatives.
It's been wildly successful and, like nearly everyone, I'm fine it.
:( where’s the hacker ethos here? I suppose you have a nice Linux machine or something you customize as you see fit, and you can make calls and listen to podcasts on your phone and that’s good enough for on the go…?
I want grandma to have a locked-down iPhone but I want to be able to go through a process to be able to own my own iPhone. Doesn’t feel fine to have something crippled unless maybe it’s rented or something. Or my phone’s in an HOA.
It’s a combination of Stockholm syndrome, having an expensive phone as a status symbol, and corporate worshiping.
It also makes me “:(“ when I think of an alternate reality of where phones were as customizable and open as a plain old desktop. Open boot loader, manu supported open drivers (no blobs).
Makes me seriously consider Ubuntu touch / graphene or something else and a $200 low end / 2nd hand locked-down phone for everything else.
If and when I want a device I can tinker endlessly with, that’s very available to me already.
I have some of them.
What I don’t have is a desire to actively deny consumers a “just works” option that is extremely safe and reliable. No caveats. That would be of minor benefit to me and a detriment to many millions of people in general.
The market spoke, and a huge number of people want those. That’s fine and should remain their choice to make.
The real tragedy of outlawing Apples approach is that the only reason people want this ability is because Apple created this whole package that everyone wants.
tldr; It’s an extraordinarily selfish thing to insist on at everyone else’s expense. I’m ok doing without the one thing.
Until recently Apple only allowed Webkit on iOS. In the EU and Japan now they allow proprietary engines. But this means Mozilla needs to put in all the extra effort to maintain yet another branch for iOS with all the features, for an even more limited user base in those regions alone.
My current excuse? Android (the only current realistic alternative; I don't have the time nor care to fiddle with technical details on a device that I need to be a reliable tool. I'm not afraid of going deep on something less standard, Linux has been my daily driven OS for literally decades) is trash and untrustworthy in my experience. Browser extensions alone are not nearly enough to tip the scale for me to go back to it. As mentioned I use something that provides extension support already (from a browser that has far fewer developers working on it!), which is why I find it stupid that Mozilla won't figure out a way to do it themselves.
Where do I buy this device that does let me run any software I want?
Most Android phones don't even let users unlock the bootloader anymore. And if you do unlock the bootloader, now Google Pay doesn't work, among other things. I don't really feel like being in control of what software I use when the software I actually want refuses to run. F-Droid homepage is also concerning.
The one I'm typing this on right now reliably handles all the functions I need and lets me run any software I want. While not everyone's needs will be met by it, let's not paint a picture that hasn't been generally true for many years now already.
Fair enough and good for you. My point was that currently your only options are either giving up a freedom to run the software you want, or losing utility. In neither case I feel like being in control. The war is over and the users lost.
I don't personally agree with Apple's decisions, but you "vote with wallet" people need to have at least some modicum of empathy before you start demanding that people have a lot for you and join your cause.
> Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers
There are many subpar adblockers available both built into browsers on iOS and as extensions. uBlock Origin Lite for Safari remains the best mobile adblocker on iOS, I suppose.
Wipr is the best adblocker on iOS that I’ve tested. Indie dev, gives you a lot for free, has a way to block outside of web views too. Big fan, I never had consistent ad blocking experience on iOS until I used it
So they still don't support the Content Blocker API? Wouldn't that have been easier? Then I could use whichever lists or providers (Adguard, uBlock, etc.) that I want.
Also a big Wipr fan, and generally a fan of the indie dev behind it too because it works so well. They’ve been responsive over email so you might be able to request a feature
But advertising is the source of funding that many content creators rely on to make a living... Of course I don’t want Meta and Google profiting from mind-manipulating ads, but where is better business model? Crypto micropayments?
With AI I am reconsidering my stance on micropayments.
I recently loaded up a few dollars on Deepseek to try it out, and the value I got out of it far surpassed my balance lost (tens of cents). If this is a sustainable business model for Deepseek (I'm not sure yet), then this shifts the economics: in this scenario I feel totally fine paying pocket change for something valuable.
We already know google's searches cost orders of magnitude less than serving an AI model, so there is no reason to believe micropayments couldn't work there too. Of course, advertisements make Google a lot more money than micropayments, so they never tried it, but I suspect that while they might not work in all scenarios they are underexplored as a monetizing strategy.
I feel like website owners could band together and along with search engines figure out tiers for people viewing their content (free, minimal fee, larger fee, etc).
And some publishers would choose that, others would form different coalitions and say: get a subscription and you get access to xyz content, just like with streaming etc. It would need cooperation, so maybe the idea is already dead in the water, but the web being the realm of advertising is not set in stone.
This is the kind of “better internet” I want. Compared with ads, I’d much rather have a 0.05 dollar paywall.
But for this to work, the technology has to be built on crypto micropayments. The total cost and friction of traditional payment systems, including online payment services like PayPal, would make this impossible. I think this is also one of the design goals behind Web3 and Project Xanadu.
Firefox was a mainstream browser. After it stopped being one, it did what all the other browsers did: bake adblock within. Even now they do so with trepidation.
Well, not bad. But it's not uBlock, and Safari's blocker is already working fine for me. Brave's also been doing this for years. But at least it's something.
> Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page
Not ideal, but (at least on desktop) you can set the Home page to a blank page, and there is an extension called 'Blank New Tab' that I've been using for quite a while.
Google's only reason for keeping Mozilla on life support is to avoid the argument of being a total and complete browser monopoly.
Firefox's global traffic market share is less than double digits [0] and is less than 5%. Google technically doesn't need traffic from Firefox and Google is roughly paying half a billion ($585M) a year for it. [1]
Firefox on iOS has a terrible problem with its autocomplete (I think they replaced the algo with a janky Llm-style autocomplete). When I type “news” into the url bar, it will suggest one of it’s marketing partners (or whatever) but incorrectly such as: newsyorker.com
I dont ever visit The New Yorker but even after clearing caches and site data the problem still persists. I can delete the app and the problem goes away for a short while.
I left a review on the App Store about this and the person (bot?) they hire to respond to reviews asks me to open a ticket. No! How about you port my review over as a ticket and fix your damn software.
That may give firefox a bit of percentage back, since some folks can not stand ads anymore. Google garnered a lot of opposition to its evil rule by destroying ublock origin (on chrome).
Blocking ads wholesale is a terrible idea and unnecessary. What needs to be blocked is ads that execute client-side javascript (consuming your memory and cpu), ads that consume too much network bandwidth and so on. Ads are necessary so that content producers can generate income, without it they won't produce quality content. When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their ads less abusive. Content producers get paid and you get to enjoy the content for free. Everyone wins.
> When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their ads less abusive.
Ads were made abusive, malicious, and dangerous WELL before ad blockers existed. Ad blockers are a response to abusive, malicious, and dangerous advertising. Sadly there are very few reliable ways to whitelist trustworthy advertising. Google and Facebook et al. have all served harmful advertising at some point.
It's too late to turn this around. All trust is lost with advertisers, and to be honest, I'm not sure a system based on trust was ever going to work anyway. Content creators must now create new ways to derive value from their work. Perhaps we go back to an internet where people wrote blogs and posted pictures not for money, but as a hobby. I think that was a better internet.
There are multiple standarss for better advertisements[1][2] and AdBlock Plus introduced "acceptable ads" whitelisting if your ad meets one of the criteria.[3] Consumers do not want this and this "acceptable ads" policy is what caused the shift from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin.
I'd rather the government sponsor a roundtable between advertisers/browser manufacturers to discuss coming up with a legally protected "acceptable ads" programme to be enforced by default without causing antitrust problems.
I care about having a general purpose web content blocker. I use it for blocking all kinds of things that aren't ads, like YouTube comment sections, random noisy useless cruft I don't care about, etc.
No. I will not discriminate between which ads I block when neither the site operators nor the ad networks discriminate on what they host. The moment i turn off my ad block I’m up to my eyeballs in lies and scams and garbage. No. Thanks.
This ad funded internet needs to die. It is rotten to the core and advertising is the source of almost all the evils of the modern web. As long as enough of the general public continues to not Adblock I’ll enjoy my free ride.
I’d be happy for a content producer wide subscription that would disable ads on all participating sites. As long as that doesn’t exist, I’m happy with my adblocker.
Next to that, my device, my choice what I get to see and what I don’t get to see.
If I allocated proportionally pieces of $5 to my favorite content producers a month they would get orders of magnitude more than what they get from me watching ads.
I hate ads, I hate the experience of having something in between me and what I want to do, having random images sent through my eyeballs, etc. So no, not everyone wins with advertising.
Google et al make more money (or at least think they do) through advertising and eschew micropayments for this reason, but that doesn't make micropayments unprofitable. And I don't want things for free if it means watching ads.
In particular:
* Cannot use all filter lists simultaneously (rule limits apply)
* No cosmetic filtering in the default mode
* No scriptlet injection by default
* Limited dynamic filtering capabilities
* Requires broader host permissions upfront
But it's definitely still better than no adblockers
The only mainstream browser left that can still run the full version of uBlock Origin is Firefox.
All the others have the same limitations imposed by Manifest V3.
[0] https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15790
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/privacy-browser-brave-busted-f...
[2] https://www.xda-developers.com/brave-browser-installs-vpn-wi...
[3] https://www.atlas.science/news/the-shady-world-of-brave-sell...
AdGuard and Wipr use both the Web Extension and Content Blocker APIs, so they'll block ads in all web views system wide on top of within Safari itself.
However as far as trustworthiness goes, uBlock is (imo) #1.
On AdGuard: can act as your PiHole and allow you to see network requests when run in non-native mode.
> wBlock by an MIT student is open source
It's funny to me that some find that narrative appealing.
Here's another narrative: Many of those MIT students go on to be SV founders and employees who build, operate, and make millions or billions from the mass surveillance and ad industry. And I'm sure some participated in FOSS in college - what better way to build your resume for the surveillance/ad industry?
(I'm not commenting on the wBlock developer; I think all such narratives are deceiving and should be ignored.)
These days I don't run on-device adblock, I just do DNS filtering for the most part but I'll check it out, not sure I wanna keep tunneling all my DNS queries to ControlD perpetually lol
I’ve found it to work exceptionally well after trying other free adblockers.
Developing for that spec means your extension is incompatible with idk, 98% of the browser market?
There are probably additional things behind the scenes just due to the limitations of uBOL but you again in practice don't see it.
uBlock Origin Lite uses the cross-platform DeclarativeNetRequest extension API: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtens...
Google invented this API for Chrome, and the other web browsers are adopting it. uBlock Origin Lite does not use Apple's content blocker API.
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/19063#i...
Firefox including it is likely just reducing the steps required.
Firefox addons target gecko, not webkit.
What Orion's doing is horribly hacky and prone to cause issues with a multitude of addons, and of course Mozilla shouldn't bow to Apple's incredibly anti-competitive behavior.
You pay apple for a phone that can act more-or-less as a general purpose computer with apps. Apple should let you install the apps you want, and that they don't do so is insulting.
The fact that the EU and Japan ruled it illegal, and Apple responded by only changing it in those two countries instead of all countries is doubly insulting.
Not only that, but the "entitlement" (Apple lingo for code-signature flag that grants capabilities) needed to publish a browser effectively requires to be an established company, ensuring hobbyists can't really get there with an open-source project even though the sources of Firefox are available and could technically be ported.
Are they? I've built a few Firefox extension and I cannot recall any part of the API that is Gecko-specific. While parts of the API aren't entirely browser-agnostic, they definitely seem to be engine-agnostic.
But I believe there are still zero third party browsers, to publish their browser in the EU Mozilla need an EU development team because developers outside the EU are unable to install it, and Mozilla cannot publish it as their existing app. Enforcement is taking years.
It’s not okay if you’re a duopoly where over 95% of people buy your product as a prerequisite to functioning in modern society.
It's been wildly successful and, like nearly everyone, I'm fine it.
I want grandma to have a locked-down iPhone but I want to be able to go through a process to be able to own my own iPhone. Doesn’t feel fine to have something crippled unless maybe it’s rented or something. Or my phone’s in an HOA.
It also makes me “:(“ when I think of an alternate reality of where phones were as customizable and open as a plain old desktop. Open boot loader, manu supported open drivers (no blobs).
Makes me seriously consider Ubuntu touch / graphene or something else and a $200 low end / 2nd hand locked-down phone for everything else.
I have some of them.
What I don’t have is a desire to actively deny consumers a “just works” option that is extremely safe and reliable. No caveats. That would be of minor benefit to me and a detriment to many millions of people in general.
The market spoke, and a huge number of people want those. That’s fine and should remain their choice to make.
The real tragedy of outlawing Apples approach is that the only reason people want this ability is because Apple created this whole package that everyone wants.
tldr; It’s an extraordinarily selfish thing to insist on at everyone else’s expense. I’m ok doing without the one thing.
The EU forced them to allow other browser engines in their regions, but it's not global, and therefore fragmented.
Most Android phones don't even let users unlock the bootloader anymore. And if you do unlock the bootloader, now Google Pay doesn't work, among other things. I don't really feel like being in control of what software I use when the software I actually want refuses to run. F-Droid homepage is also concerning.
Linux phones barely handle the basic functions.
The one I'm typing this on right now reliably handles all the functions I need and lets me run any software I want. While not everyone's needs will be met by it, let's not paint a picture that hasn't been generally true for many years now already.
2. Caring about other aspects of the device.
I don't personally agree with Apple's decisions, but you "vote with wallet" people need to have at least some modicum of empathy before you start demanding that people have a lot for you and join your cause.
> 1. Not wanting to.
obviously you DO want to if you want to use extensions but cannot use them because you actually cannot control the software on your device
well then, you should stick to the context
There are many subpar adblockers available both built into browsers on iOS and as extensions. uBlock Origin Lite for Safari remains the best mobile adblocker on iOS, I suppose.
I recently loaded up a few dollars on Deepseek to try it out, and the value I got out of it far surpassed my balance lost (tens of cents). If this is a sustainable business model for Deepseek (I'm not sure yet), then this shifts the economics: in this scenario I feel totally fine paying pocket change for something valuable.
We already know google's searches cost orders of magnitude less than serving an AI model, so there is no reason to believe micropayments couldn't work there too. Of course, advertisements make Google a lot more money than micropayments, so they never tried it, but I suspect that while they might not work in all scenarios they are underexplored as a monetizing strategy.
I feel like website owners could band together and along with search engines figure out tiers for people viewing their content (free, minimal fee, larger fee, etc).
And some publishers would choose that, others would form different coalitions and say: get a subscription and you get access to xyz content, just like with streaming etc. It would need cooperation, so maybe the idea is already dead in the water, but the web being the realm of advertising is not set in stone.
But for this to work, the technology has to be built on crypto micropayments. The total cost and friction of traditional payment systems, including online payment services like PayPal, would make this impossible. I think this is also one of the design goals behind Web3 and Project Xanadu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu
https://cloudflare.pay/
I guess still all DNS it seems? For which NextDNS is much more useful.
> Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers
> Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page
So block ads unless it impacts their revenue sources.
Not ideal, but (at least on desktop) you can set the Home page to a blank page, and there is an extension called 'Blank New Tab' that I've been using for quite a while.
Firefox's global traffic market share is less than double digits [0] and is less than 5%. Google technically doesn't need traffic from Firefox and Google is roughly paying half a billion ($585M) a year for it. [1]
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
[1] https://stateof.mozilla.org/pdf/Mozilla%20Fdn%202024%20-%20A...
I'm not aware of any adblockers that can block the ads on the built-in New Tab page. (You can just disable them in settings anyway.)
Firefox on iOS has a terrible problem with its autocomplete (I think they replaced the algo with a janky Llm-style autocomplete). When I type “news” into the url bar, it will suggest one of it’s marketing partners (or whatever) but incorrectly such as: newsyorker.com
I dont ever visit The New Yorker but even after clearing caches and site data the problem still persists. I can delete the app and the problem goes away for a short while.
I left a review on the App Store about this and the person (bot?) they hire to respond to reviews asks me to open a ticket. No! How about you port my review over as a ticket and fix your damn software.
A chrome version of Opera is Vivaldi.
A chrome version of MSIE is MS Edge.
After FF kept breaking extensions with their switch to XUL, I stopped using them.
I don't want a chrome version of something. I want an independent browser that isn't effectively some version of adware.
I'll never understand why people don't get on board with migrating away from adware.
EDIT: so, the downvotes are because what, exactly?
Ads were made abusive, malicious, and dangerous WELL before ad blockers existed. Ad blockers are a response to abusive, malicious, and dangerous advertising. Sadly there are very few reliable ways to whitelist trustworthy advertising. Google and Facebook et al. have all served harmful advertising at some point.
It's too late to turn this around. All trust is lost with advertisers, and to be honest, I'm not sure a system based on trust was ever going to work anyway. Content creators must now create new ways to derive value from their work. Perhaps we go back to an internet where people wrote blogs and posted pictures not for money, but as a hobby. I think that was a better internet.
I'd rather the government sponsor a roundtable between advertisers/browser manufacturers to discuss coming up with a legally protected "acceptable ads" programme to be enforced by default without causing antitrust problems.
[1] https://www.betterads.org/standards/
[2] https://www.acceptableadscommittee.org/the-standard/
[3] https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads
This ad funded internet needs to die. It is rotten to the core and advertising is the source of almost all the evils of the modern web. As long as enough of the general public continues to not Adblock I’ll enjoy my free ride.
Next to that, my device, my choice what I get to see and what I don’t get to see.
I hate ads, I hate the experience of having something in between me and what I want to do, having random images sent through my eyeballs, etc. So no, not everyone wins with advertising.
Google et al make more money (or at least think they do) through advertising and eschew micropayments for this reason, but that doesn't make micropayments unprofitable. And I don't want things for free if it means watching ads.