[solardev]

No, it takes way more than that. That's basically what running a Pihole does, which barely blocks anything these days.

Good ad blocking requires you to be able to look at decrypted HTTPS traffic and remove content from the DOM, including stuff added after the fact by Javascript. That's why uBlock Origin works better than Adguard (which is a https MITM ad blocker) and why Adguard works better than Pihole (which doesn't usually MITM HTTPS).

Simple hosts blocking used to work OK two decades ago but these days so many ads are served directly from the same servers within the same HTTPS connection that it's just not enough.

[kmlx]

> Good ad blocking requires you to be able to look at decrypted HTTPS traffic and remove content from the DOM, including stuff added after the fact by Javascript.

ironically this also sounds like a security nightmare.

[solardev]

Yeah, especially since Adguard was originally Russian (they moved to Cyprus though).

But the web is unusable without ad blocking, IMO. Necessary risk.

[TekMol]

Ok, but the proxy could insert JS code into the html page which does what uBlock Origin does, couldn't it?

This would give the same flexibility without the need for a browser plugin.

[nijave]

You'd still have to MITM HTTPS which is non-trivial (compared to installing an extension) and accept the risks of managing your own CA

Afaik uBlock benefits from some browser APIs that can do things like prevent content from loading before the add-on is injected into the page so you'd lose some coverage there. I imagine it'd also be fairly difficult to intercept all outgoing web requests (to selectively block them) which a browser is fairly well positioned to provide an API for.

[solardev]

You can try, but that adds way more complexity and fragility than a simple browser extension.

That said, if you build such a product (something that can MITM HTTPS and then inject ad blocking JS on every page or video, or simply rewrite traffic to strip out ads like a packet shaping firewall, etc.) and that can make use of existing filter lists, I'd be very happy (eager, actually) to pay for it.

That is similar to how Adguard works, but that can't run on a router like Pihole does. I don't know how you'd get past the HTTPS cert issue. I think you'd first have to install that custom cert on every device connected to the router, or else have the router completely proxy every HTTPS connection and re-serve it from own domain and cert. Might run into dnssec issues too? Not really sure but sounds messy. Browser extensions don't have to worry about HTTPS and can (or could before manifest V3) directly manipulate the DOM.

That the market hasn't created one yet suggests it might be difficult. But I'd love to see one.