Imagine what it would cost Google's bottom line if Apple was truly user-focused and enabled ad-blocking on desktop, mobile and embedded safari views by default. Someone do the napkin math please!
Apple and google did everything for you to not know about it. It’s not the first thread where people either don’t know about it or will read but won’t try.
Works fine on my machine. You might need to update your filter lists or try another content blocker app.
>Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to work.
So don't enable the filter lists that try to block cookie banners?
There's also a new extension that was posted on hn a few weeks that's free and claims to have scriptlets to block youtube ads as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43204406#43208085
You can perform video search through DuckDuckGo, Invidious, or Piped.
The latter two are often blocked themselves, copy the video URL and feed to mpv to play through your preferred video player on the command-line:
Recent mpv / ytdl can almost always gain access. If you are blocked, check for updates to ytdl (which mpv typically uses for video/media downloading).
In my experience only the big ad networks let you post anything. Small specialized ad platforms usually have actual moderation.
Edit:// by the way it wasn't that hard to get ads trough ublocks filters by self hosting them either. But that's rarely really evil and I never saw that abused.
You're telling me you block ads, but have to unblock ads to view your ad sales?
Is this in the DSM-V?
If the page is too ad-ridden to tolerate, I may consider to just close that page, and go search for other options.
I use Firefox + uBlock Origin, because going to the wide commercial internet without some form of ad blocking is like going out without an umbrella when it's raining heavily.
Ad blockers usually block such stuff, for a good reason. But I don't mind it on a checkout page specifically though, because on a checkout page I wilfully disclose a ton of my private details, such as name, address, etc.
Good checkout pages work well with an ad blocker on.
The big deal was allegedly these small shops exposed you to viruses, but Walmart, Kroger, and Lowes did not.
Make it make sense.
Wasn’t Mozilla accused of selling data they collected from Firefox users?
Correct me if I’m wrong.
It's just the paradox of when you present yourself as "the good guys" - people will hold you extra accountable for things that others easily get away with as nobody expects them to do better.
Unfortunately, Mozilla tends to shoot themselves in their foot this way somewhat often.
I almost exclusively use Safari and I havent seen a single ad in almost a decade
Ps changed the term to avoid confusion, thanks!
The webRequestBlocking api, which allows the extension to inspect all request/responses in real time and act on them. With manifest v3 the extension can only supply a list of expressions to block, and the expressions that can be used is very limited.
The main difference between this and current element blockers is that Web Defuser allows you to block annoying behaviors (by modifying requests/responses in flight) in addition to elements.
At the moment it's a bit lacking in the UI department, I'd appreciate early adopter feedback (you can contact me at gmail with my username).
I understand that nerfing adblocking is definitely a big draw for Google, but Apple went the ManifestV3 route many years before, specifically to increase extension performance and privacy.
Back then there was a big uproar too, but mostly because Safari extension developers charged for a new version because they had to rewrite the entire thing.
This reasoning is so bogus that it’s hard to believe anybody could believe it in good faith. Ad blockers are essential for performance and user privacy and security.
If Apple truly bought into this reasoning then they’d integrate an ad blocker like Brave does. Follow the money.
And Apple does care because later on they started to allow blockers to spread blocking rules over multiple sub-extensions. Initially they were limited on... 15 000 rules? Can't quite remember.
But you're right. When I'm using Safari with 1Blocker, I don't even notice that I'm not using Chrome with uBlock Origin. And it accomplishes that with static rules instead of with an API that reads every request.
In other words, Google pays Apple ~$20B per year to be default search engine because they make ~$53B in revenue from those searches. This is profitable for both Apple and Google -- no "wildly illegal under-the-table measures" required.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-goog...
It's not that weird that people are a bit suspicious that it's really worth Google $20B/year.
I don't know if or how much that's changed.
I just gave Bing a quick try, and it seems to be a bit more useful (for Singapore) now than it used to be. I haven't tried all the other alternatives.
The power of the default is just that, they it is the default.
Also Apple themself has only one incentive which is to get the best deal for themselves. Is Microsoft willing to offer more money than Google? The evidence points to no.
even when an outsider tries to think of the nastiest scam, an insider shows up to explain the boring day to day is already worse.
Defaults is exactly how Microsoft has been getting away with everything they did for forever. Anti-trust investigations? Irrelevant if you can just make it configurable but the default is Microsoft.
Most people don't change default settings unless prompted and guided. And adding a setting shuts up most of "us" coz we'll just change it.
The only reason they're remove the ability to configure something would've been if too many of us change the settings for too many of our friends and relatives for it to register negatively on their end and they'd try to get away with not allowing it to be configured / hiding it as much as possible until they actually get anti-trust investigated // convicted (Re: requiring Windows to ask if you want to install other browsers than Internet Explorer).
At least it certainly leaves me (personally) having second thoughts, even though I'm no purist and use proprietary software (but try prefer free software if I can).
Very much a lesser of all evils situation.
Firefox is also the only open alternative to Chromium at the moment, so I prefer to endorse it instead.
But, I always recommend Brave for less-technical folks. It just works! My FF setup includes a number of extensions, some of which need a bit of tuning to be useful. Then you have to deal with issues in websites that just don't properly support FF, etc. My grandmother can install Brave and simply start browsing. Things just work without extra config or tinkering.
https://brianbondy.com/blog/174/the-road-to-brave-10
Why do you write "probably... based on... relationship ended"? Brave as a startup does not have time for feels not realz, pathos-over-logos nonsense. I recommend you avoid it in your work efforts too.
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-...
This is a choice we made. As I wrote in my last reply, I think we would have died trying to get Gecko/Graphene with a Web front end up to competitive scratch vs. Chrome (nm Firefox).
A Firefox fork would have gone over badly with some potentially large number of Mozilla/Firefox fans, and we'd still lack key elements not part of the Mozilla open source (at the time, e.g., Adobe's CDM for HTML5 DRM). On the upside we'd have more UX customizability.
But our choice of Chromium/Blink (via Electron, so we had Web front end upside without Firefox extensions) was not a slam dunk choice. It involved trade-offs, as all engineering does. One downside is we have to audit and network-test for leaks and blunders, which often come from Chromium upstream:
There's no need to do it, their built-in adblocker supports the same rule lists.
There's also built in blocking under brave://settings/shields for Javascript and social features.
It doesn't have a specific feature to block fonts AFAIK but it does have fingerprint protection if that's your concern.
e.g. on DuckDuckGo.
(I work on Brave's adblocker, and FWIW the folks who work for Brave are very open about their affiliation when commenting about it online)
There is some bitching about the ads crypto token, but that is entirely optional, so complaints are mostly fear and dogma. And to be honest, is a fascinating new approach to ads that suvberts the current state of affairs in the advertising market.
Your response: "I want to keep my cake and eat it too."
I have a solution for you, stop using YouTube if you feel so strongly that a video platform should be free to use.
I'm paraphrasing in the quotes, they aren't real quotes...
In the last five years or so Firefox has increasingly introduced controversial changes that make it (IMHO) less good, primarily around interface design. And, from what I understand, Mozilla employs full-time UX designers who've been driving much of that. Of course, with Firefox it's still possible to modify, fix and restore all these recent interface "improvements" with user CSS but it's a constant annoyance to need to keep fixing it. Fortunately, there's an active community effort around restoring the Firefox interface and usability, exemplified by the brilliant Lepton project https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/releases.
My perception just watching the evolution of Firefox from the outside, is that it used to be a browser that celebrated the ethos of "Have it Your Way." However, Mozilla the company gets money to pay its executives and employees (millions in the case of more than one recent CEO) by actively driving users and eyeballs for Google, Pocket and other advertisers. So the company is highly incentivized to try myriad changes and redesigns to increase appeal to "the masses" of browser users. Thus, the UX keeps getting 'simplified' and 'de-cluttered' with advanced functionality 'de-prioritized' and add-on support demoted to second-class afterthought - instead of the shining key feature advanced users value most. Basically, in recent years the Firefox UX and end-user features have been pushed by the substantial payroll needs of the Mozilla company to become more like Chrome and Safari instead of embracing its unique position as a tool for power users who value advanced features, customization and extension. And it was all for naught because Firefox has continued to lose market share while ignoring (and even actively alienating) its niche community of fanatically devoted power users.
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-...
Now, why do I have this feeling that it will be bought by some entity very close to the current US administration?
No, content blockers are specific to Safari. Third party apps can show ads just fine.
Do they also get outraged when Costco “abuses its monopoly” as soon as they stop providing free samples or cheap hotdogs?
I hate these arguments where people point to some other shitty thing a company is doing as some sort of gotcha.
Windows is split off from Lenovo/Dell. How's that working out for the Windows OS, or the Edge browser?
Edge is a perfectly good browser now? Probably should be its own company too if we are splitting Chrome off from Google.
I will tell you that we should split these companies into 100 parts if thats what you are asking.
Imagine if Apple licensed its chips out in competition with Qualcomm...
They've gone well beyond what Microsoft did in the 2000s.
Google owns so many panes of glass and funnels them all through its search and advertising funnel. They've distorted how the web (and mobile) work to accomplish this massive market distortion.
Search, Ads, and Android should be broken up into separate units. Chrome shouldn't be placed with any of those units.
While we're cutting, YouTube should be its own entity and stand on its own legs too.
Apple, Amazon, and Meta need the same scrutiny. Grocery stores and primary care doctors should not be movie studios and core internet infrastructure. Especially when those units are wholly subsidized by other unrelated business units, and their under pricing the market is used to strangle out the incumbents and buy them up on the cheap.
New management is aligned with breaking up big tech.
Founders Fund (Thiel), A16Z (Andressen [0], Horowitz), and YC (Gary Tan) have all been lobbying for some form of big tech breakup because it sucks up capital+oxygen needed for startups they funded to exit at respectable valuations.
Also, Andressen's Netscape was screwed over by Microsoft, so he has a grudge against large players.
[0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/andreessen-more-tech-compani...
Startups would be able to grow larger. There would be less threat from big tech coming in to eat your market, and M&A wouldn't be the preferred exit strategy.
Tech talent would be able to get paid more without big tech setting wages and orchestrating coordinated layoffs. More successful startups = more money for venture and labor capital. Right now that money just goes to institutional shareholders which are not the innovation drivers of the economy.
Startups will actually get to compete for markets rather than having them won and subsidized by unrelated business units at the big tech titans. The solutions delivered will fit the market needs much better.
Even big tech itself might fetch a higher valuation and be greater than the sum of its parts. So much of big tech is inefficient, untethered from market realities (eg. Alexa), and a waste of talent and human capital on dead end projects. Having Jeff Bezos "pay whatever it takes" to acquire the rights to "007" is a sign of how bloated these market distorting companies have become.
This needs to happen and is long overdue.
That one is already being pursued.
Sure, it doesn't rule out google was secretly intending on doing it, only internal memos or whatever can prove that definitively. But at the same time, to immediately conclude that google was "abusing its market position", you would have to be maximally uncharitable to google. That's a sad way to see the world. Take for instance, the flak that google got for banning third party cookies. If this is done by anyone else (eg. Firefox), this would be seen as a good thing. However, cynics have opposed this on the basis that such change would disadvantage third party ad networks more than google, thus google was "abusing its market position to their own benefit" and therefore the change was bad.
The reasoning is obvious, and "plausible deniability" is not enough to give Google charity. The more difficult you make it to block ads, the more impressions, and the more money made. Yet you believe people should be "charitable" to the same company that can't hire the manpower to defend their own users against bad faith DCMA takedown notices. Because they ran the analysis, and it wasn't worth the cost.
Best case scenario, Chromium loses market share, implements the parts removed from V2, Google likely kicks the can down the road to Manifest V4.
There's no reason to believe companies deserve charitability. Companies are systems designed to extract maximum value, and when the world around that system changes, the system adjusts itself. It's not the systems fault for trying to get more value, it's our fault for letting them.
Eventually, there will be an overstep that make enough capable people mad, and those people will get together and make/mod something better.
Google is an ad company restriction use of the primary ad-blocker on its browser, it's blatant.
Have you missed the part of my comment of my comment where I specifically mentioned "web advertising presence"? That's relevant, because ublock would only work on web ads. It can't block ads in the app store, or any other app (eg. spotify).
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3AuBlockOrigin%2FuAssets+ap...
Thus they also clearly have an incentive to sabotage uBO. It may be a much smaller piece of their revenue than at Google, but it is a huge proportion of their revenue growth. Don't believe Apple's marketing about their caring for privacy, belied by their actions.
Can you link to a specific rule that shows Apple has web ads? The search results you linked either removeparam filters (which I guess is "tracking", but probably the most benign kind), malware sites that contain "apple.com", or analytics domains that seemingly belong to apple. Moreover there's no evidence that Safari's content blocker restrictions make a difference here. The domains are trivially blocked so it's unclear how apple is materially gaining from their nerfed adblock.
I currently use Adguard as a content blocker for Safari on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Does this mean that Safari will also start restricting access to these ad blockers?
Doesn't Safari have the same restriction, also ostensibly for "security/privacy" reasons? The only difference is that Apple doesn't have a web advertising presence, so you can't make the accusation that they're "abuse its market position to their own benefit".