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by matheusmoreira 1563 days ago
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.
3 comments

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.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-...

> the blockers should be fully integrated into the browsers themselves in order to solve the trust problem

s/solve/transfer

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.

I assume browsers are trustworthy user agents. If this is false, we've already lost.
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.