This is a new framing for me...I don't think of ublock as impersonating me, but rather representing me, like an agent in a transaction. While it's true that agents that represent you need to be trusted, there is also a huge upside: ublock origin can do things that DNS blocking cannot. Given ublock's (gorhill's) track record, I think this is an excellent deal.
Gorhill's track record is the critical bit. He transferred maintenance responsibilities for ublock to someone who immediately exploited it to make money, which is why we now have ublock origin. In a world of 7.9 billion people, it is amazing that a decent internet experience depends so much on a single person being competent and honorable. He (and the block list folks) are the heroes that run into the virtual dumpster fire and pull us out.
Right; there's a reason we literally call the browser the "user agent", and uBlock is just a part of that. It's not impersonating me, it's a vital part of the browser being a useful tool for me.
On the contrary; the browser is still generally the user's agent (although Chrome can be iffy) - we don't need to imagine, because we can compare the Facebook app to browsing Facebook in a browser, and see that the browser is still far more friendly to the user's interests than what FB ships.
It is, although both Chrome and Safari obviously have their own, non-user interests.
But browsers in 2022 are second class citizens, for business models that can generate positive ROI from developer time. They are at best dissuaded (e.g. Reddit, TikTok), and at worse actively crippled or prohibited.
The majority of users are on apps, and more users are moving to devices (e.g. Chromebooks, Portal). All of which are explicitly not user agents.
Wrong, no. It's a compromise. Addons have the ability to filter advertisements that cannot be identified by their domain name or ip. They also can take actions to compensate for website failure when ads are blocked.
Most ad services now swap their ad JS domains frequently, aggregate snippets (ads and functional) over a Tag Manager, or simply even proxy the ad scripts through the main domain, which a DNS filter cannot block reliably.
You're not wrong. We're all placing immense amounts of trust in uBlock Origin. I often say that the blockers should be fully integrated into the browsers themselves in order to solve the trust problem. It's sad that it can't happen due to conflicts of interest.
Given that it's open source, we have the freedom to audit the code to make sure it's trustworthy.
Also, Mozilla has a vetting process it puts a popular subset of extensions through.
>Due to the curated nature of Recommended extensions, each extension undergoes a thorough technical security review to ensure it adheres to Mozilla’s add-on policies.
The browser owns the connection anyway and can do whatever it wants with the content. Of course trusting one party is better than having to trust two parties so we are back to do we trust the adblocker?
> Of course trusting one party is better than having to trust two
I wouldn't trust Google to block its own ads, it is much harder for them to intentionally fuck up a generic API that can be used by others without raising suspicion. Hence why everyone calls them out on the manifest v3 changes.
I also wouldn't trust Mozilla to invest the manpower to keep the plugin running and with them already including ads in the browser itself I would see another acceptable aids policy on the horizon.
For a job like this in specific I would rather trust someone whose goal is to provide a great internet experience over making money, I couldn't name a single browser vendor who would qualify.
If you use Chrome, you've already lost. I mean seriously what do you expect if you use a browser from the #1 targeted advertising provider in the world?
If you use Firefox, perhaps... They are becoming like the others in their quest to become a corporation. Driven by marketeers and telemetry, selling ads to get by, paying their C-suite millions of dollars...
So in effect, yes. Most people have already lost. The rest of us are on the way there.
You can bet with every release of ublock origin that security people are all over looking at the code diffs for security issues. I don't have an issue with it. At some point you have to trust somebody. Otherwise just take wire cutters, walk outside your house, and cut the cable.
DNS filtering sucks and can't filter ads served from the same domain as content, if all you can block is a FQDN, there's an absolute shit ton of trackers and ads that are getting past you.
This is why piholes are awful. I don't know why they get such high praise - it's just a crappy DNS filter that blocks like what 40% of the ads you see?
PiHole is not awful. It greatly enhances the blocking provided by browser plugins. Most valuably, it blocks an enormous amount of ads in non-browser apps. If I'm using e.g. the BBC app on my phone, PiHole blocks most of the ads (or at least it used to; I haven't checked recently). It also blocks ads in smart TVs and other places where you can't install uBlock.
it doesn't enhance anything a browser plugin does -it's a redundancy.
yes, it can block SOME ads in apps. it's also really good at breaking access to said apps too, then you must spend a great deal troublehsooting apps one at a time.
IMHO - ublock on the browser, pay for apps that have adfree versions, don't use apps that don't, and pirate the rest.
Pihole is contributes to a defense in depth strategy. Lots of android games are unplayable when I'm connected to the internet unless I'm on a network protected by pihole. Yes, I can run a firewall on my phone, but maintaining firewalls on every device that my family uses?
Solution: don’t play games or use any app where the business model isn’t “I give you money and you give me goods and services”.
I have one ad supported app on my phone - the Overcast podcast player. That’s only because the author created his own non scummy ad network and I find ads on the podcast player that advertise other podcasts useful.
If I didn’t, I would pay him too to get rid of ads.
That only works when they're willing to take your money and willing to then not show you ads or track you. Lots of places won't take your money and only do ads, and an upsetting number are happy to take your money and then track you and/or show you ads anyways. (My "favorite" so far is Hulu, who has the audacity to call their paid plan "no ads" and then include ads.)
Then don’t use those services or buy those products?
When I did buy Windows PCs, I either bought from the business division of Dell or the Microsoft store specifically because they weren’t bundled with adware.
I thought part of the point is that 40% or whatever never gets sent to your device in the first place - speeding up requests, reducing usage. Those seem like good things.
DNS is better, but I find that you need to have a dns server rather than modify/update the host files on router because it'd kill it.
Pihole is great, but you have to maintain a pi. It's not hard, but the other issue is also training and education when users/family is not on it.
In the end, subscription purchases for youtube, help because the ads are really horrible on mobile platform and not blockable easily on iphone.
I went all over the place with this comment, but I agree DNS level is better then browser level. The IP is still enumerated on a browser adblock level, but not on a DNS level.
DNS filtering is weak and there are numerous bypasses [0], including ones you can never fix at the DNS layer [1]
[0] Ex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30412070
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30411049