Here's what's happening to ad blockers in Google Chrome (and other browsers) (www.spacebar.news)
from corbin@infosec.pub to technology@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 22:18
https://infosec.pub/post/13798290

#technology

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Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 22:52 next collapse

www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/windows/

subtext@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 23:46 next collapse
555@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 00:09 next collapse

www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/linux/

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 02:09 next collapse

Eh, on Linux, it’s probably in your package manager, and likely already installed. Just be careful with Ubuntu since they use snaps.

555@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 04:03 next collapse

Be careful?

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 04:22 collapse

Firefox auto-updates with the snap version, whereas it doesn’t with most package manager versions. So if it updates while you’re using it, it won’t let you open new tabs without restarting it (Firefox, not the machine), which can interrupt your workflow. On other distros, that only happens when installing updates manually, which isn’t an issue because you’re aware of it.

This is second hand info though since I don’t use Ubuntu, so YMMV.

Veraxus@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 15:04 collapse

Nonsense like this is why I no longer use Ubuntu (or anything else downstream of Canonical, or anything with Snaps).

[deleted] on 18 Jun 03:18 next collapse

.

PoolloverNathan@programming.dev on 18 Jun 22:49 collapse

nix run nixpkgs#firefox

mechoman444@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 01:54 next collapse

www.waterfox.com

A really good chrome clone using Firefox. It’s my go-to browser.

Only issue is that it’s a little slower to update than Firefox direct.

ayaya@lemdro.id on 18 Jun 04:07 next collapse
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml on 18 Jun 11:03 next collapse
skybox@lemm.ee on 19 Jun 21:51 collapse

floorp.app Been lovin this fork solely because the vertical tab bar integration is awesome.

9point6@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 22:57 next collapse

Run a pihole or similar

Your web browser is just one piece of software on your network capable of displaying ads and collecting data

paraphrand@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 23:05 next collapse

That’s reminds me, I should go update mine.

Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 02:13 collapse

I’m only familiar with pi holes on a cursory level, but you have to update them manually? This is a bit of a turn off.

Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 02:21 next collapse

You could schedule it with cron. You usually don’t need to update the lists very often though, and you don’t want to either as you’re just wasting the bandwidth of the hosts of the lists, who aren’t making any money off hosting them.

karika@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 06:30 collapse

You have to type one command:

pihole -up

docs.pi-hole.net/main/update/

uzay@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 06:27 next collapse

Network-level adblock cannot replace browser-level adblock and vice versa

DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org on 18 Jun 14:05 collapse

Both… both is good

xyz1195@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 18:06 next collapse

I’m a bit clueless when it comes to that but certainly interested. Could you maybe go into more detail as to which hardware and software is needed to set that up?

Thanks much in advance!

9point6@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 18:39 collapse

So the main software is here pi-hole.net (and they have good documentation, so I’m not going to repeat the nitty-gritty here)

You obviously need something to run it on, which could be some existing computer that’s always on, but (as the name might suggest) a lot of people use some form of Raspberry Pi (or similar) single-board computer.

Pihole will run on basically anything, so you can get an ancient pi and it will still run fine

MentorKitten@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 22:03 collapse

I thought this requires permission to a router. Can you do this say at a dorm or an apartment where internet is provided for you through a portal

9point6@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 22:33 next collapse

You can always configure the DNS manually on a device you own to ignore the DHCP settings sent from the router and just go directly to the pihole, obviously not as good as it happening automatically, but a good workaround if that’s not possible

PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de on 19 Jun 09:26 collapse

Another user commented that you can run Unbound (the technology used by pihole) on your machine.

Even easier, configure your device to use an ad block DNS resolver. Control D has free ones: controld.com/free-dns

kbin_space_program@kbin.run on 17 Jun 23:34 next collapse

What a garbage article. Chock full of google propaganda and fear mongering.

555@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 00:09 next collapse

What’s Google?

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 02:12 collapse

A misspelling of googol, which means 10^100^.

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 00:10 next collapse

What specifically is “google propaganda and fear mongering” in the article?

kbin_space_program@kbin.run on 18 Jun 00:16 next collapse

Mentions UBlock seems.to be fast and safe, but that the API used lets extensions look at everything you do amd can dramatically affect browser speed. Implying that UBlock Origin is responsible for Chrome being such a memory Hog and that they, not Google, are the ones after your data.

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 01:05 next collapse

Except the part where it didn’t imply that at all?

That performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization (uBO has an explainer wiki page), but there were probably other extensions not doing that well. It’s not hard to see a situation where multiple poorly-optimized extensions installed using the Web Request API could dramatically slow down Chrome, and the user would have no way of knowing the issue.

Deebster@programming.dev on 18 Jun 01:17 collapse

That performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization […], but there were probably other extensions not doing that well.

The article goes out of its way to not do what you’re accusing it of. I don’t understand how you’ve managed to read the article as having the opposite slant as what it actually does.

far_university1990@feddit.de on 18 Jun 11:36 collapse

I don’t think that’s necessarily the case: Google knows as well as I do that a total crackdown would give governments like the European Union and United States more ammo for antitrust lawsuits.

They do not care, never have, never will. Cost of operation.

It would also be a motivator for more people to switch browsers, which would weaken Google’s browser monopoly.

Not enough even care that would make noticable difference in market share.

A lot of people were upset 23 years ago when Windows ME removed real mode DOS, too.

And they all stopped using it, right? Right?

The new Declarative Net Request API is still a downgrade in capability compared to the older API, but the feature gap has closed significantly.

Chrome now allows extensions to include 100 rule lists, with up to 50 lists active at once. There are also additional filtering options, including an option to have case-insensitive rules, which cuts down on duplicates in filter lists. The maximum number of filter rules now varies by use case — an extension can now have up to 30,000 dynamic rules (filters downloaded by the extension) if they are deemed as “safe” (block, allow, allowAllRequests or upgradeScheme), an additional 5,000 other types of dynamic requests, and more filters included in the extension package.

for context, EasyList is just one of the lists enabled by default in uBlock Origin and other ad blockers, and it has over 75,000 rules.

Can you math? Feature gap almost same as before.

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 14:33 collapse

That’s up to 30K dynamic rules, at least 30K static rules, and at least 1K regex rules: developer.chrome.com/…/declarativeNetRequest#prop…

That seems like it’s fine for general use, and those limits might go up again. EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format, and there’s probably some dead rules in there. uBlock Origin on Firefox will definitely be more versatile moving forward, but every time I’ve used uBlock Origin Lite in Chrome it’s almost the same experience.

far_university1990@feddit.de on 18 Jun 17:53 collapse

Why even make limit at all? Should not have any.

EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format

Source? Or you just assume they can? What about specific list? List by small maintainer?

Not convinced feature gap any better yet just by slightly higher number and not said real number and vague „can compress list“.

Also, until Hill say satisfied with api or proven it enough to fight google head on in adblock war, not think good enough.

Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 02:15 collapse

Seemed pretty level headed and surprisingly well written to me.

Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 01:57 next collapse

(and other browsers)

… that aren’t Firefox.

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 03:37 collapse

The article talks about Firefox too.

jeena@piefed.jeena.net on 18 Jun 02:23 next collapse

uBlock Origin for Chrome has over 34 million installations according to the Chrome Web Store

Oh wow, that is very surprising to me. I somehow expected a billion of installations. Especially when I saw the screenshots without it in the article, how can anyone browse the web without it?

LordWiggle@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 02:39 next collapse

There are other ad block options. And there is Firefox. I use Vivaldi browser, it has a built-in ad blocker, just like many other browsers. I just wish Vivaldi would be Firefox based.

jeena@piefed.jeena.net on 18 Jun 02:53 collapse

But Firefox has a installation base of 2.8% and Chrome 65%. The Firefox uBlock Origin installations are in my opinion statistically insignificant, so are Brave browser installations which are even lower.

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 03:36 collapse

Adblock users are still a statistical minority of web users. Most people don’t care (as evidenced by Netflix’s ad tier gaining subscribers every quarter) or don’t know those extensions exist.

chirospasm@lemmy.ml on 18 Jun 02:29 next collapse

TL;DR use FF

[deleted] on 18 Jun 03:17 next collapse

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erwan@lemmy.ml on 18 Jun 06:33 next collapse

Use Firefox if you want but don’t donate to Mozilla. Money doesn’t go to Firefox development anyway.

Also if they can afford to pay their CEO $3 millions a year, they don’t need your donations.

001Guy001@lemm.ee on 18 Jun 06:41 collapse

Just adding that as I understand this, donations to the Mozilla Foundation cannot go towards Firefox, because it’s [edit: Firefox is] actually part of the Mozilla Corporation. To help with funding Firefox people can consider purchasing the Corporation’s other products (VPN/Relay/Monitor), or purchasing merch.

See more here on the AMA on Reddit, and this thread

mrvictory1@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 11:44 collapse

afaik the corporation is part of the foundation so the other way around

001Guy001@lemm.ee on 18 Jun 12:15 collapse

Sorry, it was unclear in my comment. By “it’s actually part of the Mozilla Corporation” I was referring to Firefox, not Mozilla Foundation

corbin@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 03:41 next collapse

If you like this article, please consider following the site on Mastodon/Fedi, email, or RSS. It helps me get information like this out to a wider audience :)

Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee on 18 Jun 06:37 next collapse

I didn’t even click the article. Here’s Why -

Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 15:05 collapse

They only have 40 posts so I gave them a follow. It’s when accounts have like 10k posts and an account is less than a year old that I won’t follow them, I don’t need that noise.

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 07:57 next collapse

Since January 2018, 42% of malicious extensions use the Web Request API.

That’s like making knifes illegal in general because they have been used in a certain amount of murder cases.

ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 10:46 next collapse

And now, a new golden age of malvertisement will emerge…

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 14:53 collapse

Indeed. What a f-ing stupid argument: “We cannot trust the extensions that the user installed, therefor we give malware from advertisers free roam!”

LordCrom@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 12:31 next collapse

If 42% of crimes used a handgun, we should ban those too.

StaySquared@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 18:20 collapse

You just made the argument for gun rights.

Thank you and I love you. <3

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 21:28 collapse

You just made the argument for gun rights.

Definitely not. Gun ownership should be abolished like slavery was. A knife has good use for cutting and cooking, but a gun, especially in private hands, has absolutely no reason to exist.

skeezix@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 21:37 next collapse

a gun, especially in private hands, has absolutely no reason to exist

Americans phrase it a bit different:
‘Fuckin guns fuck yea!’

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 21:47 collapse

Yep. One of the many intellectual challenges that the US is facing…

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 22:54 next collapse

Gun ownership should be abolished like slavery was.

I’ve got some awful news for you about slavery

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 19 Jun 09:44 collapse

So you completely accept the state’s monopoly on violence, and you also don’t think farmers should be allowed to shoot pests?

This is a statement made by someone who lives in a political and ecological bubble.

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 10:12 next collapse

So you completely accept the state’s monopoly on violence

Better than spreading this to everydays mass shooting event culprits, don’t you agree?

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 19 Jun 11:07 collapse

“Spreading”? It’s already spread.

Plus it’s kind of impossible to understand how you see police brutality and the way they responded to the George Floyd protests and think, “Yeah, these guys should be trusted with the only guns in existence.”

Like have you already forgotten about Uvalde? If the cops hadn’t been there to cower behind their cars and stop people rescuing their kids then less kids would’ve died.

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 11:19 collapse

First: Is “every redneck yokel and his dumb brother is allowed to own an arsenal” in anyway better than a government monopoly in that regard?

Second: This would of course need properly selected and trained policemen, not those trigger-happy yokels that the US uses instead.

My position is from a country where “Police Brutality” is seen as an American or other third world country thing. We don’t allow every random idiot to own a gun. We have properly trained police. We therefor also don’t have issues like Uvalde and George Floyd. For an American, it is hard to draw a straight line between those factors, but in the rest of the civilized world, it is the standard.

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 19 Jun 11:28 collapse

So sorry for assuming you were talking about the US when you talked about school shootings.

I come from a country like that too, but if you think police brutality doesn’t happen in your country then again: political bubble.

Go ahead, tell me what country you’re from and I’ll burst it for you.

I used to say the same thing about my country, Australia, where they’ve recently been imprisoning whistleblowers who expose clear government abuse. EDIT: They’ve also been doing racist colonial violence since day 0 and they have never stopped.

There is no such thing as a state that can be trusted with violence. They always use it to oppress.

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 11:35 collapse

There is no such thing as a state that can be trusted with violence.

Oh, and trusting random yokels with violence is better?

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 19 Jun 11:37 collapse

Unironically yes.

Now are you going to answer what I’m saying or are you just bowing out of all the points you tried to raise and which I answered?

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 12:51 collapse

Unironically yes.

My condolences.

Now are you going to answer what I’m saying or are you just bowing out of all the points you tried to raise and which I answered?

I answered all the relevant ones.

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 19 Jun 13:02 next collapse

So like… your answer is no.

GiveMemes@jlai.lu on 19 Jun 13:24 collapse

You provided exactly zero reasoning for most of your statements and have now taken a condescending position. People like you are why we can’t have nice things in the world.

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 14:23 collapse

WTF do you need a “reasoning” for that normal people should not have guns at all?

GiveMemes@jlai.lu on 19 Jun 21:38 collapse

I prefer basing my opinions on logic, arguments, and facts over feelings. Your inability to articulate a response to certain arguments shows why this is still a debate. Further, you’re relying on the idea that something is crazy to you, therefore it should be to everybody, but that’s not how it works. There’s racist people that use this exact type of reasoning to support their racism.

E.G.

“Black people are less than white people”

logical counterpoint logical counterpoint

“WTF do you need a reasoning that black people are less than white people”

If your position is really stronger, then it shouldn’t be hard for you to make arguments in favor of it.

cheddar@programming.dev on 19 Jun 14:37 collapse

So you completely accept the state’s monopoly on violence

That’s the whole point of the state. And no, you guys are not fighting the US army with its armored vehicles, rockets, bombs, drones, etc. with your guns if it comes to this.

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 20 Jun 01:16 collapse

The point of the state is to maintain one class’s domination over others, violence is just the means to achieving that. It’s not a good thing.

And not all armed resistance takes the form of open warfare.

Under a strong state one viable way of resisting the state is community defense. For instance the Black Panthers began open carrying to observe police doing traffic stops, because black men kept getting killed (edit: of course we know they still are).

The state’s response was weapons bans. That ban targetted the Black Panthers and was selectively enforced against them. This is where California got its reputation for banning guns. It was the state maintaining its ability to oppress people along class and racial lines.

StaySquared@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 18:22 next collapse

I think I’ve made this comment before, but I really wish people would learn more about technologies like pihole. Get the ad once, get the hyperlink, add it to blacklist.

[deleted] on 18 Jun 19:34 next collapse

.

BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one on 18 Jun 19:53 next collapse

Ironically, I wish people including yourself knew more about shit like how PiHole/RaspPi simply leverage Unbound, which is not unique to only Pi software or Pi devices. You can do this same thing on any OS that has it installed.

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 18 Jun 22:56 next collapse

Does Unbound work across the entire network on devices you can’t install it to directly, the way a pihole does?

zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Jun 03:17 collapse

Only if used as primary DNS service for whole network, however, has no where near the options pihole or adguardhome have; my limited experience is with it in opnsense, so by far isn’t complete but I disable it and forward everything to adguardhome.

What it can do in opnsense (for an example of what can be done with it, blocklist near bottom): docs.opnsense.org/manual/unbound.html

djsaskdja@reddthat.com on 18 Jun 23:01 next collapse

Does it have a GUI or is it CLI only?

zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Jun 03:16 collapse

GUI and cli, however, has no where near the options pihole or adguardhome have; my limited experience is with it in opnsense, so by far isn’t complete but I disable it and forward everything to adguardhome.

What it can do in opnsense (for an example of what can be done with it, blocklist near bottom): docs.opnsense.org/manual/unbound.html

Netrunner@programming.dev on 19 Jun 10:04 collapse

Adblock is more than just a DNS sink. I have both of those, but still use ublock origin.

BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one on 19 Jun 14:22 collapse

Yep, same

morrowind@lemmy.ml on 19 Jun 03:33 next collapse

Until that ad also happens to be for a legitimate website you want to visit. I’d rather have a adblocker I can change right there in the website

cheddar@programming.dev on 19 Jun 14:43 collapse

That’s a very rare case, and you can whitelist a domain using the pihole’s web interface. It may require extra two clicks, but I had to do that maybe twice in the last year.

SpaceCadet@feddit.nl on 19 Jun 10:06 next collapse

I run a pihole as well, but it is a very rudimentary tool compared to browser based adblockers like uBlock origin. It can only block DNS queries, and can’t for example block ads if they are served from the same domain as the main site (i.e. youtube) or block specific elements on a page or block a specific script from running.

StaySquared@lemmy.world on 20 Jun 13:06 collapse

can’t for example block ads if they are served from the same domain as the main site (i.e. youtube) or block specific elements on a page or block a specific script from running.

Yeah that’s true.

ColdWater@lemmy.ca on 19 Jun 10:24 collapse

Too much effort for pretty much everything that normal AdBlock already did

StaySquared@lemmy.world on 20 Jun 13:02 collapse

But it’s worth it… pretty much can block anything and everything across the entire network - on all endpoints.

FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 18 Jun 19:12 collapse

This finally made all my Chrome friends switch to the fox. about time

mrgreyeyes@feddit.nl on 19 Jun 10:36 collapse

I mean it’s just a browser. Bit of fiddling with the saved password and your go to go again to never look back. If they value their users they will improve again like Firefox did in the background over years.

I only hope a good search engine will appear again. I don’t like the alternatives.

dustyData@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 13:19 next collapse

If you are smart, you have a password manager that you login once then everything is there and ready to login to every single account instantly.

Veneroso@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 13:33 collapse

I have been using swisscows for about a month. It’s no Google… But it seems to be better than what Google is now…