top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 276 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (16 children)

I said it for Waterfox and I'm gonna say it again for Firefox: this is good. At worst, it's just fine (Mozilla just uses it internally to replace or supplement its old and incomplete Tracker Blocking system, which never gets the same scrutiny).

The biggest difference between Firefox and Waterfox in implementation is the WaterFox developers noticed this FF change early, and committed to providing full-fledged ad blocking out of the box, which is great news for users.

A few more reasons this is good:

  1. Rust is faster than JavaScript
  2. Native functionality is faster than an extension
  3. Actual ad blocking is something Firefox users have been begging Mozilla to do
  • source
  • hideshow 17 child comments
  • [–] 48 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Rust is faster than JavaScript

    isn't ublock's filtering compiled to webassembly?

    Actual ad blocking is something Firefox users have been begging Mozilla to do

    seems a bit dangerous though to risk for a browser with so small market share

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    isn't ublock's filtering compiled to webassembly?

    From my unprofessional glance ar their repository, it uses a little, but not much. Take a look at their code; all or most of the filtering is done in JavaScript, the webassembly appears to be just one two modules. (It's in the "wasm" folder near the top of the list).

    (Edit: I was looking at outdated code; the newer version uses more, but IMO pales in comparison to the JavaScript filtering logic)

    seems a bit dangerous though to risk for a browser with so small market share

    Waterfox has a much smaller market share and much smaller budget, and was able to clear this with search partners just by promising not to block ads on them by default.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Waterfox has a much smaller market share and much smaller budget, and was able to clear this with search partners just by promising not to block ads on them by default.

    my point is not actually about search providers, but more generally websites intentionally breaking support for gecko based browsers. waterfox itself is too little, most developers don't even know about it I think. but firefox is the flagship/reference gecko browser, with more of a measurable number of users. if they implement a good ad blocker in the base browser, that could discourage advertising related sites from serving/supporting this browser.

    brave is different in that it uses chromium, which the sites just happen to support already because of chrome. but firefox support is often not a priority even today

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • load more comments (4 replies)
  • load more comments (15 replies)
    [–] 195 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    A built-in ad blocker is easily the least problematic announcement coming out of Mozilla in the last year.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 145 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    As long as it doesn't interfere with Ublock Origin I guess that's fine.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 133 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    "Quietly™" by posting about it beforehand everywhere they could.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 106 points 4 months ago (41 children)

    Cool.

    Still sticking with uBlock and SponsorBlock (skips all the "this video was sponsored by" segments on YouTube).

  • source
  • hideshow 42 child comments
  • load more comments (40 replies)
    [–] 90 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    Of course they just had to make it somewhat contreversial by adopting braves adblock engine; brave's ceo or whatever funds anti gay lobbyists.

  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 57 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Brave is also backed by Peter Thiel.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
  • load more comments (12 replies)
    [–] 73 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Quietly

    The developer made this change from a personal laptop at their local public library.

    Shhhhhh.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 59 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    As someone whose employer blocks the installation of browser extensions, I am more than excited to hear that!

    Using the web sucks since that policy has been implemented a year or so ago.
    Integrated adblock engine would rectify that again.

  • source
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • load more comments (13 replies)
    [–] 47 points 4 months ago* (4 children)

    That's cool, take the good part of Brave, leave behind the villainous CEO and dodgy crypto scams

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 44 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    They didn't include this in the release notes? What in the world is going on?

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 29 points 4 months ago

    a default-disabled prototype

    No wonder it didn't show up in normal/enduser release notes.

    This article suggests you have to disabled Enhanced Tracking Protection to test it. Does it replace that entire system with an equivalent system?

    I'll wait until it's stable and productive.

  • source
  • [–] 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t think it’s as good as uBlock Origin.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 43 points 4 months ago (12 children)

    It's a re-implementation of the uBlock origin engine in a faster language, and it can be used with all the same lists as uBlock origin. The only thing missing is a decent user interface, and even if Firefox isn't committed to providing one, WaterFox is.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • load more comments (11 replies)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 27 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Huh, right after Waterfox started to implement it themselves. Must have spooked Mozilla. I don't see how using Brave's adblock engine is all that different from uBlock Origin though since they both just enforce DNS lists, right? Could be wrong, I know nothing about how adblocking works on the backend, lol

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 31 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    DNS lists?
    Fuck no brother (or sister or non-binary sibling)

    Anyway. You can go as far as modifying the HTML page by overriding CSS rules.
    Overrode the font on a page I am using at work because the vendor is apparantly not using their own product and the font is fucking tiny in some places.
    You can override elements, dynamically remove with a selector wildcard, DNS blocks or subscribe to blocklists that can do all of it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • load more comments (3 replies)
    [–] 24 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Why did they not just set ublock as a default installed plugin?

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 22 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    It would be really nice too if they implemented Brave's fingerprint randomization, which is obviously not perfect and I'm never going to expect Tor like anonymity, but is far better than most other browsers. Where Mullvad and Tor try to make everyone look the same, Brave randomizes nearly every important fingerprint.

    And I know Firefox does this pretty well already, but from the research I did, Brave's fingerprint vector randomization is another level.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    If we are going to eschew open source projects from shitty tech companies, then there’s a pretty long list.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 15 points 4 months ago

    What is the progress of Servo and Ladybird?

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    That's a good thing.

    Brave's native adblock is the best.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›