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I've switched over from ABP to UBlock Origin. UBO is so much faster than ABP, uses fewer resources, and does a better job. And, most importantly, they do not ge
by weirdentropy 11y ago
I've switched over from ABP to UBlock Origin. UBO is so much faster than ABP, uses fewer resources, and does a better job. And, most importantly, they do not get in bed with the ad companies to arrange for acceptable ads. There are no acceptable ads in my view (no pun intended). I block ads precisely because they use my bandwidth, they are a vector for malware, they interfere with my viewing of websites, they track me (this should be illegal), many, many more bad things.
In addition to UBlock Origin, I block DOM, HTTP/S referrer, CSS visited links (surfing history viewable by websites), block WebRTC (leaks private IP address schemas), and more. I have a right to a clutter-free Internet that is not tracking me, using my bandwidth without my consent, and doing everything to make money from me without my consent or sharing with me should it do so. No, thank you. I will continue to block all ads, tracking cookies, beacons, you name it. I somewhat enjoy the cold war between users and the ad companies.
- fsaintjacques 11y agoSecond time I see your comment, would you care sharing how you accomplish all this?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- weirdentropy 11y agoSure. I use Firefox and install the following: - Disconnect - Ublock Origen (choose 3rd-Party block lists to suit.) - Privacy Badger (no set up, just install, it learns as you go) In Firefox, use about:config to change the following: - Toggle dom.storage.enabled to False - Toggle layout.css.visited_links_enabled to False - Toggle media.peerconnection.enabled to False - Toggle network.prefetch-next to False - Toggle network.http.sendReferrerHeader to 0 (zero) - Toggle network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer to False These settings have worked for me with no issues. I bank, do all manner of things online with no issues. I do, however, see no ads, no tracking, faster page loads, clean experience all around.
- glass- 11y ago> - Toggle layout.css.visited_links_enabled to False Firefox lies[0] to scripts that try to access the style-state of visited links. You probably don't need to set this. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Privacy_and_the_%3Avisited_selector#Little_white_lies https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Privacy_and...
- cezar_sl 11y agoDo you have any experience with uMatrix?
- sotojuan 11y agoPretty cool set up, but why no NoScript?
- cesarb 11y agouBlock Origin in advanced mode can also block (and temporarily unblock) Javascript, much like NoScript. For me, I found uBlock Origin's advanced mode easier to use than NoScript, while blocking the same amount; the only thing I sort of miss is that NoScript attempts to "fix" some pages so they work even without Javascript, while uBlock Origin does nothing more than preventing the scripts from running.
- rdudek 11y agoThanks! I'll give this a shot. Maybe finally a reason for me to ditch Chrome and go the Firefox route.
- darrmit 11y agoI had just switched back to Chrome from Firefox because I couldn't find a working mix of add-ons and settings that didn't freak Firefox out. Going to give this a shot. Thanks.
- vram22 11y ago>In Firefox, use about:config to change the following: Don't those settings have any adverse effect on any web services you use, such as say Gmail or any finance-related site you use, such as say Amazon? Everything works the same as before (except for now not getting ads and wasting bandwidth)? Pretty good if so. Not familiar with this area, hence asking.
- ep103 11y agowell hopefully you don't have verizon, as they've announced plans to inject customer specific identifiers into all requests seen from their customers for tracking reporting and reselling. just fyi
- weirdentropy 11y agoYes, I saw this, but it doesn't affect HTTPS traffic.
- w8rbt 11y agoOr Tor.
- theg2 11y agoWhat a magical world you live in where everything is free and no one needs to be paid for their work. Ads have been abused by companies over the years but whitelisting sites that whose content and services you value and don't abuse you with those ads are the only reason they can afford to exist. Edit: I get it, you don't want ads. People have abused them over the years and that's bad. My only point is that whitelisting (or donating/subscribing to where possible) the sites you value keeps those sites running. It's nice that some sites don't need financial support to pay for reporters, editors, producers, and photographers but that's not the case for many sites that do great journalism.
- Touche 11y agoBytes are distributed over the public internet. He/she has a right to ignore the bytes he/she doesn't care about.
- anc84 11y agoThe good old "there can not be free-of-cost content unless money is involved" fallacy. I am a member of many communities whose hosting costs are paid by the communities, the administrative tasks are shared by members of the communities, I "consume" many sites which only exist because their authors want to express themselves, I use sites that exist because people feel the need to share their knowledge and collections of bytes. They all exist without a single ad. They exist because someone wants them to exist. This comment was written and shared for free on the web without restrictions because I felt the urge to write it.
- theg2 11y agoNot all news and content creation can be done as a side job or hobby. The people who do journalism, create content, or support that goal of quality journalism need to make a living somehow.
- anc84 11y agoAbsolutely. And I wholeheartedly think that enough people support high quality journalism. See the 1 million online subscribers to the NY Times. The majority of online journalism seems to be regurgitated news agency reports and stuff that no one needs (or can get free from communities elsewhere). lots of forums, blogs and aggregators perfected clickbait and cat picture distributions a decade ago.
- neoeldex 11y agoJust switched over, but I'm wondering what you mean by blocking DOM? are you using lynx? CSS visited links are not able to be checked using javascript, so why are you blocking this?
- bcg1 11y agoAre you sure? Could someone add some invisible 'before: content()' (or however that works in CSS) inside of an a:visited rule, and then check the DOM via Javascript to see if that content is there? I haven't tried this, but it seems like it should work unless there is something specifically blocking that
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zeroDivisible 11y agoI'm using UBlock as well and will never look back, but in relation to: > And, most importantly, they do not get in bed with the ad companies to arrange for acceptable ads. Unless things changed, UBlock relies on some of the blocking lists coming from AdBlock so the sentence above might not be 100% true.
- weirdentropy 11y agoIn order for this to be true for Adblock Origin, there would have to be a toggle to allow acceptable ads. There is none. Even if their lists whitelisted sites, other lists would negate this. I'm aggressive with regard to ad blocking and use I use the majority of UBO's adblock lists except for the foreign lists.
- vram22 11y ago>In order for this to be true for Adblock Origin, I guess you meant UBlock Origin?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bad_user 11y agoABP's resource usage is not that dramatic. It had a huge problem on Firefox due to an unsolved bug, but Mozilla solved it and now ABP runs without issues. I use ABP precisely because it has the notion of acceptable ads. > I have a right to a clutter-free Internet that is not tracking me This is where we disagree. No, you don't have such a right, not on other people's expense. What you do have is the right to not use services or products that don't follow your world view. You are free to choose and preferably vote with your wallet. But you are not free to infringe on people's copyright. Do note that I'm purposely not using the word "stealing" because that's not the case here, but that doesn't mean that such actions don't harm other people or companies. And because of this mentality it's precisely why we can't have nice things. Because you see, by using ad-blockers, we are not punishing the bad actors, we are not punishing the ones that sell people's activity to the highest bidder, we are not rewarding services like Vimeo which are asking for a monthly subscription, etc, etc. And this isn't just about ad-blocking. We can extend this talk to DRM just as easily. Besides a handful of exceptions, like Minecraft or Witcher, how do you like your DRM-enabled, free-to-play, pay-to-win, mindless counter games? Because I sure as hell am glad that I've outgrown this industry. Case in point - Google has had Google Apps. For $5 per user per month, which is the price of 2 coffees, you get an ads-free Gmail experience and a contractual guarantee that they won't mine your data, your own domain so they can't lock you in, plus support which is actually good these days. And if you don't trust Google, you've got trustworthy alternatives, like FastMail. Out of the pool of people using ad-blockers and complaining about tracking, how many of them are paying for their personal email account, or for their cloud storage account? I bet that only a minority. The MPAA and the RIAA have always made the argument that piracy leads to billions in losses. I personally don't agree with their judgement, because obviously, just because some shitty movie is pirated by somebody, that doesn't mean that in absence of piracy methods the pirate would have paid. But you know what - losses do happen, because when your eyeballs and your ears are focused on some shitty piece, it means you aren't focusing on something else and there are only 24 hours in the day (same problem the food industry has, a problem called "inelastic demand"). And so the britney spearses and the beyonces and the star wars movies in our society are winning anyways. And I must say that I consider people attributing moral values or rights to their usage of ad-blockers to be hypocrites. You know, there's nothing wrong with our human nature that wants free stuff, but lets be honest with ourselves.
- probablypat 11y agoReally cool suite of tools there! Have you tried https://redmorph.com https://redmorph.com (shameless plug) ? It might help add to your arsenal of internet privacy tools or help you use less. Please let me know of any feedback you might have on it.
- jakub_g 11y agoQuick question: is there an equivalent of ABP's CTRL_SHIFT_V shortcut in UBlock origin that opens the list of all the HTTP requests done by the page so I can block them manually one by one? Last time I checked I could not find it.
- sigmar 11y agoYes. If you turn on "advanced user" in the settings, you can open uBlock origin from the toolbar and look at "+domains connected"
- realusername 11y agoJust a small minor comment, it's not possible anymore to leak browser history with CSS visited links like before because you can only change the color of the links now and not read it with the code. You can still make a page saying "click on the red squares" but that's about it.
- MagerValp 11y agoI also switched from ABP to UBO, and I also feel that it does a better job out of the box and uses fewer resources, but it's a marked downturn in usability. Quickly blocking an element like an annoying gif is a breeze in ABP (with Element Hiding Helper), and also quickly seeing what's being blocked (CMD-Shift-V), or adding a custom rule. I have yet to figure out how to do any of those easily in UBO, and enabling advanced mode deliberately disables all mouseover help. I'm close to switching back to ABP, but we'll see...
- manigandham 11y ago"no acceptable ads" - this is where the situation doesn't work out. Content isn't free, you either pay directly or indirectly. Ads are perhaps the best, easiest and most efficient passive payment system there exists today. Yes there are a lot of bad actors and general crap that has damaged the industry greatly but that doesn't mean the model itself is somehow broken. Not sure this falls under "rights" either - you definitely have the ability to do it but not a moral or legal entitlement to it.