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Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin (www.pcworld.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Firefox says it will keep supporting uBlock Origin even as Microsoft Edge and other Chromium browsers phase it out under Manifest V3.

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[–] 1 point 1 month ago (6 children)

OK, sure, but what are the actual, real-life consequences of that?

I don't see any ads online. So ad-blocking still works. What doesn't work?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (5 children)

    OK, sure, but what are the actual, real-life consequences of that?

    uBlock Origin and any other effective content blocker had that as its most important weapon, without exaggeration. it has many other techniques for specific circumstances, but preventing to load the ad scripts, and preventing network requests that send back data to the advertising company, are universally a powerful tool.

    I don't see any ads online. So ad-blocking still works. What doesn't work?

    you don't see them because addons can still insert unlimited cosmetic tweaks. CSS snippets that make specific elements hidden. but the ads are still loaded, consuming network and CPU resources, and the ad framework still collects usage, interaction and device data.

    also, the addons now can't regularly update the lists even for what cosmetic tweaks to apply. google has decided it does not allow addons in their addon store that fetch filterlists from the network. this means these addons need to embed the lists in themselves. list updates are released much less frequently, and can have several days delay while google decides whether the updated version contains something malicious or otherwise unacceptable to their policies. compared to that, uBlock Origin on Firefox updates the lists every day by default, with no delay, as it fetches the lists directly from their websites.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    uBlock Origin and any other effective content blocker had that as its most important weapon, without exaggeration. it has many other techniques for specific circumstances, but preventing to load the ad scripts, and preventing network requests that send back data to the advertising company, are universally a powerful tool.

    You're just repeating what you already said.

    My question is: since there are (and always have been) other privacy-oriented extensions (e.g. Privacy Badger, Ghostery) and they still work just as they always have, what is the advantage of specifically using uBO with Mv2?

    you don’t see them because addons can still insert unlimited cosmetic tweaks. CSS snippets that make specific elements hidden. but the ads are still loaded, consuming network and CPU resources, and the ad framework still collects usage, interaction and device data.

    I just loaded up YouTube and didn't see a single call to a known ad server, so this seems to be false.

    Also: the CPU usage of loading even a couple MB-worth of ads is negligible compared to the overall resource hungriness of Chromium.

    (...) list updates are released much less frequently (...)

    I did notice that every now and again YouTube would block me from using it due to detecting the adblocker, but is that an inherent disadvantage of Mv3? And why wouldn't the extension developers then embed the updated filter lists and just release them as extension updates? Does Google limit the frequency of those?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    I just loaded up YouTube and didn't see a single call to a known ad server, so this seems to be false.

    of course you didn't. on youtube ads are not served from different domains. have you ever heard about pihole not being able to block youtube ads? that's why. every ad is literally a video uploaded to youtube, it is even possible to watch them as videos, with their own video page.

    Also: the CPU usage of loading even a couple MB-worth of ads is negligible compared to the overall resource hungriness of Chromium.

    not always the case, differs by ad and ad framework, but the memory savings are still significant. and the difference matters more on weak computers, old computers, battery powered computers and when you are on a metered network.

    I did notice that every now and again YouTube would block me from using it due to detecting the adblocker, but is that an inherent disadvantage of Mv3?

    I don't know if that's what causes that. but not being able to update filterlists independently means that nobody can react quickly to when a website starts detecting a content blocker, or when ads start reappearing. the needs to wait for the next addon update, which may take multiple days.

    And why wouldn't the extension developers then embed the updated filter lists and just release them as extension updates? Does Google limit the frequency of those?

    because all addon updates go through a review. the effectiveness of it is largely debatable, but it delays updates significantly.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    of course you didn’t. on youtube ads are not served from different domains. have you ever heard about pihole not being able to block youtube ads? that’s why. every ad is literally a video uploaded to youtube, it is even possible to watch them as videos, with their own video page.

    So it's not a privacy issue, it's an ad issue. Which doesn't show, it's blocked.

    What does uBO do different here?

    or when ads start reappearing. the needs to wait for the next addon update, which may take multiple days.

    Just FYI - that only happens to me on YouTube every once in a while. Like, three times this year for a day or two.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    So it's not a privacy issue, it's an ad issue. Which doesn't show, it's blocked.

    I don't understand what did you intend to respond to with this. as filtering instructions get more out of date, the addon's privacy protections will also fail.

    What does uBO do different here?

    on youtube? if you fire up firefox, install uBO, ocannote uBO logger and open a youtube video page, you'll see what it does. I don't know what it does different because I don't happen to have an itemized list of what does uBO lite do, but I suppose it has a logger function too, and you can compare it.

    uBO mostly protects against tracking here. automatically selects no in the google data sharing dialogue, employs lots of scriptlets (documented on the wiki) to set variables used by youtube, to unfuck youtube in other technical ways, and to block behaviors it shouldn't even think about doing (why does it need a scriptlet that blocks writing the clipboard??), blocks ad video segments, hides annoying things from the UI because I have lists enabled that do that.

    but there is something I can confidently say it does differently: it always works from up to date, detailed filterlists. lite cannot do that.

    Just FYI - that only happens to me on YouTube every once in a while. Like, three times this year for a day or two.

    so far releases go public within a day, but don't think that will go so smoothly when google gets the urge again to fuck up ad blockers, and addon uodate review suddenly takes days to weeks, or they find some idiotic non-existent problem as the play store team loves to do with open source apps.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago

    I don’t understand what did you intend to respond to with this. as filtering instructions get more out of date, the addon’s privacy protections will also fail.

    OK, I get what you mean. I guess if you require 100% certain and absolute privacy, then yeah, uBO is the way to go. Seems like a pretty narrow user-base, tho.

    on youtube? if you fire up firefox, install uBO, ocannote uBO logger and open a youtube video page, you’ll see what it does. I don’t know what it does different because I don’t happen to have an itemized list of what does uBO lite do, but I suppose it has a logger function too, and you can compare it.

    If there is a difference, it's not noticeable to me. I fired up YT on FF with uBO and then the same video on Vivaldi with Ghostery. Honest to God, I do not see it loading longer on Vivaldi.

    to set variables used by youtube, to unfuck youtube in other technical ways, and to block behaviors it shouldn’t even think about doing (why does it need a scriptlet that blocks writing the clipboard??), blocks ad video segments, hides annoying things from the UI because I have lists enabled that do that.

    Most of this sounds like I get in Ghostery too. Blocking specific HTML elements is the one feature I feel is missing from Ghostery, but that's not really an adblock/privacy feature, is it?

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