I am able to use Firefox Focus to block ads in Safari on iOS. I’ve not had an Android for a while. What additional ad blocking features would I have on Android these days?
> I am able to use Firefox Focus to block ads in Safari on iOS
You think you are able to, but you just got lucky so far.
Focus code is very buggy and work for only a few sites. It's very hard to contribute fixes, so I expect it to stagnate even more. And since the sites we, the tech elite, read are similar to the ones the few maintainers do, those will be well served while all the rest of the internet will not see any improvement. IMO it will probably rot away like reader-mode.
Also, it is trivial for publishers to evade it :( just not a effort anyone even bothers with because of the low traffic.
Real firefox for android allows you to install uBlockOrigin. The only actively maintained adblocker that is being gasslighted everywhere. And that you was never allowed to install on IOS devices thanks to Apple the company.
1Blocker and AdGuard Pro for iOS are both quite good.
1Blocker in particular has a great UI for homebrew element targeting, while AdGuard Pro supports arbitrary lists and relatively rich blocklist filter rules.
Both are very actively maintained. The innovation from AdGuard is surprisingly rapid, they are not just resting on feature sets from long ago.
I would guess that the argument is that, on Android, you always have the option of rooting your phone or installing an alternative OS. So Google is a bit more limited than Apple is in how hard they can clamp down.
Personally, I don't know that that's true. It may be easier for Apple to do it because the ecosystem is more vertically integrated. But that's a coordination problem, not a technical one. I don't think there's a single major player in the Android ecosystem who wouldn't be willing to go along with a plan to lock things down just as far as laws will allow.
I should have specified a non-rooted phone. Years ago I used to root androids, install cyanogenmod or similar, and sell them locally. People would pay a premium for that. But I am no longer in the camp where I want a rooted phone as my daily driver.
I am also weary of giving "random" third parties access to my browsing. I think that my least bad option on iOS is Mullvad, with all blocking turned on. But the bad part there is no browser integration to whitelist sites.
I wonder if it would be possible for Mullvad to present their system as an ad-blocker to Safari, if you are running Mullvad VPN.
If you are not using a custom Android OS such as Graphene, Calyx, Lineage that don't have Google Play Services,.. you can still remove Google Play Services and other bloat used for ad tracking by using the universal android debloater found on Github. Then you can use browser Mull with ublock origin found on f-droid.org.
They sure could rip the whole extension store from default Chrome to make sure you don't get one without going the extra step (which like 90%[0] don't) of getting Firefox.
“Content blockers” are merely a relatively short list of patterns that Safari itself will exclude. It’s nothing like uBlock Origin in power and flexibility and lets far too much through.
Super misleading. You can block websites manually, but you can’t add an adblocker to Chrome - so if you want an ad free experience, then you’re forced to use safari, a historically subpar browser - but worse, it’s vendor lock in.
If this article is true, this is some terrifically anti competitive behavior
All browsers on iOS are merely rebranded safari. No such thing as a subpar browser IMO, just subpar websites that require browser features no one should need.