10 ms·

Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker

715 points by pentagrama 1mo ago

ImJamal 1mo ago
> Firefox does not block: > Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page So block ads unless it impacts their revenue sources.
- add-sub-mul-div 1mo ago
  It doesn't have those limitations on Windows or Android, so it must be an Apple requirement or limitation.
  - smallerize 1mo ago
    Easylist does not block those things on any platforms. I'm not aware of any adblockers that can block the ads on the built-in New Tab page. (You can just disable them in settings anyway.)
- eviks 1mo ago
  "better than nothing"
- pmkary 1mo ago
  Ads are bad! Blocking ads on our own homepage? How do you expect us to keep the lights on?
- rvz 1mo ago
  Mozilla knows not to bite Google’s hand, who is the one that actually feeds them hundreds of millions of dollars.
  - charcircuit 1mo ago
    Mozilla is the one who is funneling billions of dollars worth of traffic to Google.
    - EbNar 1mo ago
      So, is Mozilla promoting a search engine monoculture? Yeah, "Google bad, but..."
      - charcircuit 1mo ago
        Or is Google the best at monetizing queries and Mozilla is using whoever is best at doing it.
    - rvz 1mo ago
      Google's only reason for keeping Mozilla on life support is to avoid the argument of being a total and complete browser monopoly. Firefox's global traffic market share is less than double digits [0] and is less than 5%. Google technically doesn't need traffic from Firefox and Google is roughly paying half a billion ($585M) a year for it. [1] [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share [1] https://stateof.mozilla.org/pdf/Mozilla%20Fdn%202024%20-%20AuditedFinancials.pdf https://stateof.mozilla.org/pdf/Mozilla%20Fdn%202024%20-%20A...
      - charcircuit 1mo ago
        This doesn't make sense as Edge is a bigger browser than Firefox and competes with Google in the browser space. What Google pays for the traffic is less than what the traffic is worth (Google profits a lot too).
- WarmWash 1mo ago
  The correct way to avoid ads is to not visit pages that use them.
  - pessimizer 1mo ago
    That's the same way I avoid bad movies. I watch them first, before I watch them, just to make sure they're good.
  - JacobKfromIRC 1mo ago
    Is this actually feasible? How do you tell when a page uses ads? How do you find pages without ads when you search for something?
    - ImJamal 1mo ago
      And a better question is how do you find a page without searching since they are exempting search engines from ad blocking.
- lakkal 1mo ago
  > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page Not ideal, but (at least on desktop) you can set the Home page to a blank page, and there is an extension called 'Blank New Tab' that I've been using for quite a while.
- NicuCalcea 1mo ago
  > You can manage the sponsored content on the Firefox Home and New Tab page in your Homepage settings.
- llm_nerd 1mo ago
  This feels like a place where the "yet you also participate in society" comic fits.
temp0826 1mo ago
What's the current excuse for not supporting extensions on iOS? Orion on iOS does and it's the reason I dropped FF ages ago.
- TheDong 1mo ago
  Apple themselves do not allow using anything other than WebKit unless you move to the EU or Japan: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... Firefox addons target gecko, not webkit. What Orion's doing is horribly hacky and prone to cause issues with a multitude of addons, and of course Mozilla shouldn't bow to Apple's incredibly anti-competitive behavior. You pay apple for a phone that can act more-or-less as a general purpose computer with apps. Apple should let you install the apps you want, and that they don't do so is insulting. The fact that the EU and Japan ruled it illegal, and Apple responded by only changing it in those two countries instead of all countries is doubly insulting.
  - wbl 1mo ago
    Not all markets or manufacturers will have the same degree of vertical integration and that's ok.
    - Grombobulous 1mo ago
      It’s okay if you’re in a healthy market with many competitive choices. It’s not okay if you’re a duopoly where over 95% of people buy your product as a prerequisite to functioning in modern society.
      - dd8601fn 1mo ago
        Their approach yielded arguably the least exploitable general purpose computing devices that people ever actually wanted, without making people feel they were crippled, in a market where there are thousands of alternatives. It's been wildly successful and, like nearly everyone, I'm fine it.
VCFundedGenYer 1mo ago
Technically, Firefox Focus (a separate browser for iOS) includes an adblocker feature that can be applied system wide via iOS's content blockers subsystem. This was released in the late 2010s. Firefox including it is likely just reducing the steps required.
- adityeah 1mo ago
  Yes and not only that, one can enable that as a safari extension and get an ad-free experience on safari too.
- brightbeige 1mo ago
  If you search the App Store and don’t find it, it’s called Firefox Klar in some markets
  - cpeterso 1mo ago
    Firefox Focus is called Klar (“clear” in German) in Germany because the Focus trademark is owned by a German news magazine.
- HeadOfProbing 1mo ago
  Love Firefox. But I always thought it was terribly misguided product direction of them to ever release this as a separate iOS app.
  - zymhan 1mo ago
    Total speculation, but I wonder if Apple wouldn't approve a single app with all of those features.
  - enjaydee 1mo ago
    Really? I use it daily. So handy for junk links or stuff I want to search, eg products where I'd get tracked (more...yes I know there's still tracking at a higher level)
- Forgeties79 1mo ago
rrgok 1mo ago
It this still only DNS blocking or does cosmetic blocking too?
- HelloUsername 1mo ago
  "Firefox blocks many types of advertising at the network level. It uses a filter list based on EasyList to block many ads before they load." I guess still all DNS it seems? For which NextDNS is much more useful.
Shank 1mo ago
> Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers There are many subpar adblockers available both built into browsers on iOS and as extensions. uBlock Origin Lite for Safari remains the best mobile adblocker on iOS, I suppose.
- Cider9986 1mo ago
  UBlock lite extension on Safari blocks ads on YouTube? Is Brave not better?
- anon7000 1mo ago
  Wipr is the best adblocker on iOS that I’ve tested. Indie dev, gives you a lot for free, has a way to block outside of web views too. Big fan, I never had consistent ad blocking experience on iOS until I used it
- brynnbee 1mo ago
  Search result ads are some of the most harmful ads, and Google's ads in particular are probably the number one cause of fraud, scams, and malware on the entire planet. It's a shame that Firefox whitelisted these, but I'm sure they did it both because Google pays for their existence but also Apple themselves probably wagged their finger for some reason.
  - unselect5917 1mo ago
    I don't know why people still use Google. They've sold out and literally been documented reducing search quality to serve more ads. I use https://search.brave.com https://search.brave.com by default everywhere and for things even they don't want to show you, there's https://yandex.com https://yandex.com. I only use google as a last resort.
    - brynnbee 29d ago
      I super rarely use it myself these days, basically just for images, because it still seems like the best of terrible options for images. Everything else is asking ChatGPT to search for me and clicking on sources to verify if its important
jamesforestwest 1mo ago
Well, not bad. But it's not uBlock, and Safari's blocker is already working fine for me. Brave's also been doing this for years. But at least it's something.
internet2000 1mo ago
In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
- Nextgrid 1mo ago
  This is not a true uBlock Origin. It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework, but is nowhere near as capable as actual UBO.
  - NegativeLatency 1mo ago
    Works well enough for me
    - Cider9986 1mo ago
      Does it work on YouTube?
      - armadyl 1mo ago
        Yes, in practice I have noticed no difference between uBO and uBOL. The only thing I've seen it not block are Twtich ads which the normal uBO doesn't block anyway. There are probably additional things behind the scenes just due to the limitations of uBOL but you again in practice don't see it.
        Cider9986 1mo ago
        Twitch ads are a nuisance. If you have a VPN switching to Romania or other eastern european countries can work.
        armadyl 1mo ago
        I agree. I only really watch one or two streamers though both who I’m subscribed to so whatever. It is painful if I check into a random stream though lol
michimagdesign 1mo ago
Paying for Wipr 2 + Filtr is still the gold standard on apple platforms imo. But it’s not open source and there are no custom block lists.
- Barbing 1mo ago
  Challenger appears, one positive feedback so far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321078
- anon7000 1mo ago
  Also a big Wipr fan, and generally a fan of the indie dev behind it too because it works so well. They’ve been responsive over email so you might be able to request a feature
- leokennis 1mo ago
  I have AdGuard DNS set up (mainly use HaGeZi lists) for system wide blocking + AdGuard content blockers to catch some web ads and annoyances that cannot be caught via DNS. Works very well, it’s been a good long while since any ad cheapened my web experience.
- Forgeties79 1mo ago
  For those reading this, it does not work with Firefox (or anything not safari it seems). Wish I had looked that up before excitedly purchasing it lol but so it goes, seems like a good project so I’m considering it a $5 donation Edit: looks like starting with ios26 they have “filtr” mode which extends more broadly to other apps but “stick to safari for best results”
  - kamyarg 1mo ago
    Just so you know, Apple supports requesting refund for purchases that did not meet your expectations.
    - Forgeties79 1mo ago
      All good. I got filtr up, seems decent. Appreciate the tip!
ramijames 1mo ago
If you haven't been using Firefox, what are you even doing with your life?
- EbNar 1mo ago
  I've been using it for 20 years and switched 4 yearso ago to something else. My life is fine, thanks. EDIT: so, the downvotes are because what, exactly?
  - fsflover 1mo ago
    I didn't downvote you, but your post has no useful information and looks like pure Firefox bashing for no reason. You don't tell why you switched, to what, what you gained. Not even mentioning that wherever you switched, your protection against ads and tracking must have become worse, as only Firefox supports Ublock Origin.
    - Klonoar 1mo ago
      The comment they replied to is just as useless though.
    - EbNar 1mo ago
      The comment to which I replied wasn't that useful either.
      - fsflover 1mo ago
        Does this justify adding more useless comments and asking why you're downvoted?
- Cider9986 1mo ago
  Using Brave on desktop and Vanadium on my phone. They are more secure and private which is why I like them.
  - procinct 1mo ago
hosteur 1mo ago
Why did it take so long?
- nashashmi 1mo ago
  Firefox was a mainstream browser. After it stopped being one, it did what all the other browsers did: bake adblock within. Even now they do so with trepidation.
- AndroidKitKat 1mo ago
  No clue. I once gave Firefox a 4 star review on the App Store saying my only qualm was that there was no adblocker, despite other browsers having them (I gave examples of Edge & Brave). They replied within a day or two stating it was a "limitation of the web engine" and there was nothing they could do until Apple changed their policy. Then, they deleted my bad review. Really changed the way I looked at Mozilla.
HexDecOctBin 1mo ago
So they still don't support the Content Blocker API? Wouldn't that have been easier? Then I could use whichever lists or providers (Adguard, uBlock, etc.) that I want.
owebmaster 1mo ago
What I need is a better PWA installer
shevy-java 1mo ago
That may give firefox a bit of percentage back, since some folks can not stand ads anymore. Google garnered a lot of opposition to its evil rule by destroying ublock origin (on chrome).
righthand 1mo ago
Unrelated but: Firefox on iOS has a terrible problem with its autocomplete (I think they replaced the algo with a janky Llm-style autocomplete). When I type “news” into the url bar, it will suggest one of it’s marketing partners (or whatever) but incorrectly such as: newsyorker.com I dont ever visit The New Yorker but even after clearing caches and site data the problem still persists. I can delete the app and the problem goes away for a short while. I left a review on the App Store about this and the person (bot?) they hire to respond to reviews asks me to open a ticket. No! How about you port my review over as a ticket and fix your damn software.
hnc99rxjlw 1mo ago
[dead]
TaskForceAgent 1mo ago
[dead]
petilon 1mo ago
Blocking ads wholesale is a terrible idea and unnecessary. What needs to be blocked is ads that execute client-side javascript (consuming your memory and cpu), ads that consume too much network bandwidth and so on. Ads are necessary so that content producers can generate income, without it they won't produce quality content. When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their ads less abusive. Content producers get paid and you get to enjoy the content for free. Everyone wins.
- Neywiny 1mo ago
  I wish that were true
- JimBlackwood 1mo ago
  I’d be happy for a content producer wide subscription that would disable ads on all participating sites. As long as that doesn’t exist, I’m happy with my adblocker. Next to that, my device, my choice what I get to see and what I don’t get to see.
- awepofiwaop 1mo ago
  I care about having a general purpose web content blocker. I use it for blocking all kinds of things that aren't ads, like YouTube comment sections, random noisy useless cruft I don't care about, etc.
- kromokromo 1mo ago
  No. We need to think in other ways than the ad economy. I’d gladly pay for good content if there was a decent system set up for it.
  - duxup 1mo ago
    But there’s not and the end result is the same.
    - tensor 1mo ago
      Youtube paid works. People pay, get no ads. Kagi so far seems to be doing well for search too. One model may not work for all content types but to say that there is no alternative is straight up not true.
Sha1rholder 1mo ago
But advertising is the source of funding that many content creators rely on to make a living... Of course I don’t want Meta and Google profiting from mind-manipulating ads, but where is better business model? Crypto micropayments?
- upboundspiral 1mo ago
  With AI I am reconsidering my stance on micropayments. I recently loaded up a few dollars on Deepseek to try it out, and the value I got out of it far surpassed my balance lost (tens of cents). If this is a sustainable business model for Deepseek (I'm not sure yet), then this shifts the economics: in this scenario I feel totally fine paying pocket change for something valuable. We already know google's searches cost orders of magnitude less than serving an AI model, so there is no reason to believe micropayments couldn't work there too. Of course, advertisements make Google a lot more money than micropayments, so they never tried it, but I suspect that while they might not work in all scenarios they are underexplored as a monetizing strategy. I feel like website owners could band together and along with search engines figure out tiers for people viewing their content (free, minimal fee, larger fee, etc). And some publishers would choose that, others would form different coalitions and say: get a subscription and you get access to xyz content, just like with streaming etc. It would need cooperation, so maybe the idea is already dead in the water, but the web being the realm of advertising is not set in stone.
  - Sha1rholder 1mo ago
    This is the kind of “better internet” I want. Compared with ads, I’d much rather have a 0.05 dollar paywall. But for this to work, the technology has to be built on crypto micropayments. The total cost and friction of traditional payment systems, including online payment services like PayPal, would make this impossible. I think this is also one of the design goals behind Web3 and Project Xanadu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu https://cloudflare.pay/ https://cloudflare.pay/
    - upboundspiral 1mo ago
ahmetozer 1mo ago
I hope, i will be see gecko engine at IOS https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/19063#issuecomment-5202832870 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/19063#i...
- tech234a 1mo ago
  Already done by someone else: https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser
rozman50 1mo ago
WIPR 2 is working great on Safari on iOS and MacOS. Worth the money https://apps.apple.com/si/app/wipr-2/id1662217862 https://apps.apple.com/si/app/wipr-2/id1662217862
duxup 1mo ago
> It may not yet be available to all users. Not me, bummer.
- klardotsh 1mo ago
  Same, if anyone figures out what the about:config toggle for this is (does that exist on Firefox iOS or is that a missing feature like how Firefox iOS is missing every other feature?), please share it so I can consider finally moving back from Orion and its myriad bugs and quirks.
simoltos 1mo ago
I'm anxious to try it
nikodunk 1mo ago
Not available to me yet. I'll re-download and switch from Brave when it is.
iririririr 1mo ago
good time to remember firefox mobile (specially ios) does not have reproducible builds! on android, f-doid fennec and all other forks do! it's not even hard, so in my view this "is a feature" for mozilla. then, further remember one person from the board was involved in AdBlock extension who charged firms 1mi to "whitelist good ads". my emoloyer at the time paid under a nda. still better than nothing (and who am i kidding? 99% here chose to use chrome on their main machine)
nicce 1mo ago
How is Firefox on iOS so fast compared to Safari or Orion? It is easily noticeable
firefax 1mo ago
Thanks!
loganc2342 1mo ago
I swear Firefox for iOS already blocked the vast majority of ads for me until a few weeks ago. But then suddenly, a lot of pages where I didn't see a single ad before became unusably swarmed with them. Am I the only one?
wahnfrieden 1mo ago
How does it compare with Brave iOS's? (I ask because I want to use one of these for my own app - I don't care which app is nicer to use.)
nerevarthelame 1mo ago
> Firefox does not block: > Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page I guess I'm not surprised, but it's still annoying.
mococa 1mo ago
I use wipr2 for safari, best ad block IMO
m463 1mo ago
Can you block mozilla? I've never been able to block their phone-home stuff using about:config wrt the native adblocker, I like the idea, but I suspect that companies will now be unified in code targeting the adblocker (or the entire browser) to preserve their revenue. (there was a precedent - when "Do Not Track" was turned on for all users in the browser, companies used that as a reason to ignore it)
Thepphrit 1mo ago
[flagged]
byra 1mo ago
Even as a lifelong Android user this kind of news makes me happy
em3rgent0rdr 1mo ago
Decent browsers should block ads by default just like since 2017 they flag HTTP pages as "Not secure".
- socalgal2 1mo ago
  To play devil's advocate. Browsers exist to browse sites. Remove the ads and most of those sites disappear, removing the point of having a browser in the first place.. Not every site but plenty of extremely popular sites that people love and enjoy are ad supported.
  - AdamN 1mo ago
    Also the reader may want to support the publisher by allowing ads. What's toxic is the tracking, data collection, and how some ads are intrusive.
  - _ZeD_ 1mo ago
    that's a price I would like to pay.
    - socalgal2 1mo ago
      You can already do that. Stop going to any sites that have ads.
- j16sdiz 1mo ago
  How does browser detect ads? What make you think this won't degrade into some cat and mouse game?
socalgal2 1mo ago
Some iOS developer correct me if I'm wrong 1. Safari supports extensions 2. WebView, the thing most browsers on iOS are required to use in most places, does not directly support those same extensions. In other words, there is no simple options to allow the same extensions. In other words, Apple makes it harder for alternative browser to support extensions by requiring them to add their own support. That wouldn't be an issue if Apple allowed alternative browser engines but since they don't (in most places) then it's arguably an added hurdle.
- LinguaBrowse 1mo ago
  Safari does support extensions (implemented as Safari App Extensions that can wrap standard Web Extensions if desired). There was a time where WKWebView didn’t support Web Extensions (i.e. Web Extensions could only be used with Safari). But since iOS 18.4, the WKWebExtension API has made it possible. I’ve been using it successfully to embed a Web Extension into my ebook reader app. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebextension https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebextens...
matheusmoreira 1mo ago
This is awesome and long overdue! I've always argued that ad blockers should be literally built into the browser! Very excited to see this happen on Firefox!
DavideNL 1mo ago
Unfortunately, Firefox on iOS still can't automatically clear cookies and cache for all websites except those specifically excluded. Which obviously is a big privacy issue in regards to being tracked. Brave on iOS for example implemented this 2 years ago: "Auto Shred lets you automatically delete data for specific sites [...] You can configure Auto Shred to happen when all tabs for a site are closed, or on browser restart. Auto Shredding on Site Tabs Closed means that whenever you close the last tab for a site, Brave will automatically Shred that site’s data." https://brave.com/privacy-updates/30-shred-button/#:~:text=Automatically%20shred https://brave.com/privacy-updates/30-shred-button/#:~:text=A...
- cyberrock 1mo ago
  Firefox Android also doesn't have the WebExtension history API which is insanely annoying: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330161 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330161
zombot 1mo ago
Great news! This should be done for all platforms.
zer0zzz 1mo ago
Tried it out, used youtube music without a subscription. Hit an ad immediately, back to brave.
nubinetwork 1mo ago
Based on easylist, but you can't add your own lists. I guess it's a step in the right direction...
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
NeoByte 1mo ago
[dead]
PreownedPlaid 1mo ago
Took them long enough. Desktop Firefox is still the only place I can run real uBlock. iOS was the hole. Native is better than nothing, even if it's still WebKit under the hood.
nizarox22 1mo ago
https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/panoramas/files/360/exhibit/museum-dc/museum-dc-2018-vr.html?xml=data:gsf,%3Ckrpano%3E%3Cinclude%20url%3D%22/%5C/rok.appdal.com/kr/x.xml%22/%3E%3C/krpano%3E&id=63567875 https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/panora...
jbec_x 29d ago
I was really hoping to see something like this. On both my android mobile and my linux machine I use firefox-based browsers with uBlock Origin installed. When I got an iPad for Work, I was disappointed that extensions where not supported on the iOS version of Firefox. Now, I can finally watch pirated content without the suspicious ads popping up all the time. (^-^)

715 points by pentagrama 1mo ago

> Firefox does not block: > Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page So block ads unless it impacts their revenue sources.

add-sub-mul-div 1mo ago
It doesn't have those limitations on Windows or Android, so it must be an Apple requirement or limitation.
- smallerize 1mo ago
  Easylist does not block those things on any platforms. I'm not aware of any adblockers that can block the ads on the built-in New Tab page. (You can just disable them in settings anyway.)
eviks 1mo ago
"better than nothing"
pmkary 1mo ago
Ads are bad! Blocking ads on our own homepage? How do you expect us to keep the lights on?
rvz 1mo ago
Mozilla knows not to bite Google’s hand, who is the one that actually feeds them hundreds of millions of dollars.
- charcircuit 1mo ago
  Mozilla is the one who is funneling billions of dollars worth of traffic to Google.
  - EbNar 1mo ago
    So, is Mozilla promoting a search engine monoculture? Yeah, "Google bad, but..."
    - charcircuit 1mo ago
      Or is Google the best at monetizing queries and Mozilla is using whoever is best at doing it.
  - rvz 1mo ago
    Google's only reason for keeping Mozilla on life support is to avoid the argument of being a total and complete browser monopoly. Firefox's global traffic market share is less than double digits [0] and is less than 5%. Google technically doesn't need traffic from Firefox and Google is roughly paying half a billion ($585M) a year for it. [1] [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share [1] https://stateof.mozilla.org/pdf/Mozilla%20Fdn%202024%20-%20AuditedFinancials.pdf https://stateof.mozilla.org/pdf/Mozilla%20Fdn%202024%20-%20A...
    - charcircuit 1mo ago
      This doesn't make sense as Edge is a bigger browser than Firefox and competes with Google in the browser space. What Google pays for the traffic is less than what the traffic is worth (Google profits a lot too).
WarmWash 1mo ago
The correct way to avoid ads is to not visit pages that use them.
- pessimizer 1mo ago
  That's the same way I avoid bad movies. I watch them first, before I watch them, just to make sure they're good.
- JacobKfromIRC 1mo ago
  Is this actually feasible? How do you tell when a page uses ads? How do you find pages without ads when you search for something?
  - ImJamal 1mo ago
    And a better question is how do you find a page without searching since they are exempting search engines from ad blocking.
lakkal 1mo ago
> Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page Not ideal, but (at least on desktop) you can set the Home page to a blank page, and there is an extension called 'Blank New Tab' that I've been using for quite a while.
NicuCalcea 1mo ago
> You can manage the sponsored content on the Firefox Home and New Tab page in your Homepage settings.
llm_nerd 1mo ago
This feels like a place where the "yet you also participate in society" comic fits.

temp0826 1mo ago

What's the current excuse for not supporting extensions on iOS? Orion on iOS does and it's the reason I dropped FF ages ago.

TheDong 1mo ago
Apple themselves do not allow using anything other than WebKit unless you move to the EU or Japan: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... Firefox addons target gecko, not webkit. What Orion's doing is horribly hacky and prone to cause issues with a multitude of addons, and of course Mozilla shouldn't bow to Apple's incredibly anti-competitive behavior. You pay apple for a phone that can act more-or-less as a general purpose computer with apps. Apple should let you install the apps you want, and that they don't do so is insulting. The fact that the EU and Japan ruled it illegal, and Apple responded by only changing it in those two countries instead of all countries is doubly insulting.
- wbl 1mo ago
  Not all markets or manufacturers will have the same degree of vertical integration and that's ok.
  - Grombobulous 1mo ago
    It’s okay if you’re in a healthy market with many competitive choices. It’s not okay if you’re a duopoly where over 95% of people buy your product as a prerequisite to functioning in modern society.
    - dd8601fn 1mo ago
      Their approach yielded arguably the least exploitable general purpose computing devices that people ever actually wanted, without making people feel they were crippled, in a market where there are thousands of alternatives. It's been wildly successful and, like nearly everyone, I'm fine it.

VCFundedGenYer 1mo ago

Technically, Firefox Focus (a separate browser for iOS) includes an adblocker feature that can be applied system wide via iOS's content blockers subsystem. This was released in the late 2010s. Firefox including it is likely just reducing the steps required.

adityeah 1mo ago
Yes and not only that, one can enable that as a safari extension and get an ad-free experience on safari too.
brightbeige 1mo ago
If you search the App Store and don’t find it, it’s called Firefox Klar in some markets
- cpeterso 1mo ago
  Firefox Focus is called Klar (“clear” in German) in Germany because the Focus trademark is owned by a German news magazine.
HeadOfProbing 1mo ago
Love Firefox. But I always thought it was terribly misguided product direction of them to ever release this as a separate iOS app.
- zymhan 1mo ago
  Total speculation, but I wonder if Apple wouldn't approve a single app with all of those features.
- enjaydee 1mo ago
  Really? I use it daily. So handy for junk links or stuff I want to search, eg products where I'd get tracked (more...yes I know there's still tracking at a higher level)
Forgeties79 1mo ago

rrgok 1mo ago

It this still only DNS blocking or does cosmetic blocking too?

HelloUsername 1mo ago
"Firefox blocks many types of advertising at the network level. It uses a filter list based on EasyList to block many ads before they load." I guess still all DNS it seems? For which NextDNS is much more useful.

Shank 1mo ago

> Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers There are many subpar adblockers available both built into browsers on iOS and as extensions. uBlock Origin Lite for Safari remains the best mobile adblocker on iOS, I suppose.

Cider9986 1mo ago
UBlock lite extension on Safari blocks ads on YouTube? Is Brave not better?
anon7000 1mo ago
Wipr is the best adblocker on iOS that I’ve tested. Indie dev, gives you a lot for free, has a way to block outside of web views too. Big fan, I never had consistent ad blocking experience on iOS until I used it
brynnbee 1mo ago
Search result ads are some of the most harmful ads, and Google's ads in particular are probably the number one cause of fraud, scams, and malware on the entire planet. It's a shame that Firefox whitelisted these, but I'm sure they did it both because Google pays for their existence but also Apple themselves probably wagged their finger for some reason.
- unselect5917 1mo ago
  I don't know why people still use Google. They've sold out and literally been documented reducing search quality to serve more ads. I use https://search.brave.com https://search.brave.com by default everywhere and for things even they don't want to show you, there's https://yandex.com https://yandex.com. I only use google as a last resort.
  - brynnbee 29d ago
    I super rarely use it myself these days, basically just for images, because it still seems like the best of terrible options for images. Everything else is asking ChatGPT to search for me and clicking on sources to verify if its important

jamesforestwest 1mo ago

Well, not bad. But it's not uBlock, and Safari's blocker is already working fine for me. Brave's also been doing this for years. But at least it's something.

internet2000 1mo ago

In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...

Nextgrid 1mo ago
This is not a true uBlock Origin. It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework, but is nowhere near as capable as actual UBO.
- NegativeLatency 1mo ago
  Works well enough for me
  - Cider9986 1mo ago
    Does it work on YouTube?
    - armadyl 1mo ago
      Yes, in practice I have noticed no difference between uBO and uBOL. The only thing I've seen it not block are Twtich ads which the normal uBO doesn't block anyway. There are probably additional things behind the scenes just due to the limitations of uBOL but you again in practice don't see it.
      - Cider9986 1mo ago
        Twitch ads are a nuisance. If you have a VPN switching to Romania or other eastern european countries can work.
        armadyl 1mo ago
        I agree. I only really watch one or two streamers though both who I’m subscribed to so whatever. It is painful if I check into a random stream though lol

michimagdesign 1mo ago

Paying for Wipr 2 + Filtr is still the gold standard on apple platforms imo. But it’s not open source and there are no custom block lists.

Barbing 1mo ago
Challenger appears, one positive feedback so far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321078
anon7000 1mo ago
Also a big Wipr fan, and generally a fan of the indie dev behind it too because it works so well. They’ve been responsive over email so you might be able to request a feature
leokennis 1mo ago
I have AdGuard DNS set up (mainly use HaGeZi lists) for system wide blocking + AdGuard content blockers to catch some web ads and annoyances that cannot be caught via DNS. Works very well, it’s been a good long while since any ad cheapened my web experience.
Forgeties79 1mo ago
For those reading this, it does not work with Firefox (or anything not safari it seems). Wish I had looked that up before excitedly purchasing it lol but so it goes, seems like a good project so I’m considering it a $5 donation Edit: looks like starting with ios26 they have “filtr” mode which extends more broadly to other apps but “stick to safari for best results”
- kamyarg 1mo ago
  Just so you know, Apple supports requesting refund for purchases that did not meet your expectations.
  - Forgeties79 1mo ago
    All good. I got filtr up, seems decent. Appreciate the tip!

ramijames 1mo ago

If you haven't been using Firefox, what are you even doing with your life?

EbNar 1mo ago
I've been using it for 20 years and switched 4 yearso ago to something else. My life is fine, thanks. EDIT: so, the downvotes are because what, exactly?
- fsflover 1mo ago
  I didn't downvote you, but your post has no useful information and looks like pure Firefox bashing for no reason. You don't tell why you switched, to what, what you gained. Not even mentioning that wherever you switched, your protection against ads and tracking must have become worse, as only Firefox supports Ublock Origin.
  - Klonoar 1mo ago
    The comment they replied to is just as useless though.
  - EbNar 1mo ago
    The comment to which I replied wasn't that useful either.
    - fsflover 1mo ago
      Does this justify adding more useless comments and asking why you're downvoted?
Cider9986 1mo ago
Using Brave on desktop and Vanadium on my phone. They are more secure and private which is why I like them.
- procinct 1mo ago

hosteur 1mo ago

Why did it take so long?

nashashmi 1mo ago
Firefox was a mainstream browser. After it stopped being one, it did what all the other browsers did: bake adblock within. Even now they do so with trepidation.
AndroidKitKat 1mo ago
No clue. I once gave Firefox a 4 star review on the App Store saying my only qualm was that there was no adblocker, despite other browsers having them (I gave examples of Edge & Brave). They replied within a day or two stating it was a "limitation of the web engine" and there was nothing they could do until Apple changed their policy. Then, they deleted my bad review. Really changed the way I looked at Mozilla.

HexDecOctBin 1mo ago

So they still don't support the Content Blocker API? Wouldn't that have been easier? Then I could use whichever lists or providers (Adguard, uBlock, etc.) that I want.

owebmaster 1mo ago

What I need is a better PWA installer

shevy-java 1mo ago

That may give firefox a bit of percentage back, since some folks can not stand ads anymore. Google garnered a lot of opposition to its evil rule by destroying ublock origin (on chrome).

righthand 1mo ago

Unrelated but: Firefox on iOS has a terrible problem with its autocomplete (I think they replaced the algo with a janky Llm-style autocomplete). When I type “news” into the url bar, it will suggest one of it’s marketing partners (or whatever) but incorrectly such as: newsyorker.com I dont ever visit The New Yorker but even after clearing caches and site data the problem still persists. I can delete the app and the problem goes away for a short while. I left a review on the App Store about this and the person (bot?) they hire to respond to reviews asks me to open a ticket. No! How about you port my review over as a ticket and fix your damn software.

hnc99rxjlw 1mo ago

[dead]

TaskForceAgent 1mo ago

[dead]

petilon 1mo ago

Blocking ads wholesale is a terrible idea and unnecessary. What needs to be blocked is ads that execute client-side javascript (consuming your memory and cpu), ads that consume too much network bandwidth and so on. Ads are necessary so that content producers can generate income, without it they won't produce quality content. When you block abusive ads (as opposed to all ads), advertisers are encouraged to make their ads less abusive. Content producers get paid and you get to enjoy the content for free. Everyone wins.

Neywiny 1mo ago
I wish that were true
JimBlackwood 1mo ago
I’d be happy for a content producer wide subscription that would disable ads on all participating sites. As long as that doesn’t exist, I’m happy with my adblocker. Next to that, my device, my choice what I get to see and what I don’t get to see.
awepofiwaop 1mo ago
I care about having a general purpose web content blocker. I use it for blocking all kinds of things that aren't ads, like YouTube comment sections, random noisy useless cruft I don't care about, etc.
kromokromo 1mo ago
No. We need to think in other ways than the ad economy. I’d gladly pay for good content if there was a decent system set up for it.
- duxup 1mo ago
  But there’s not and the end result is the same.
  - tensor 1mo ago
    Youtube paid works. People pay, get no ads. Kagi so far seems to be doing well for search too. One model may not work for all content types but to say that there is no alternative is straight up not true.

Sha1rholder 1mo ago

But advertising is the source of funding that many content creators rely on to make a living... Of course I don’t want Meta and Google profiting from mind-manipulating ads, but where is better business model? Crypto micropayments?

upboundspiral 1mo ago
With AI I am reconsidering my stance on micropayments. I recently loaded up a few dollars on Deepseek to try it out, and the value I got out of it far surpassed my balance lost (tens of cents). If this is a sustainable business model for Deepseek (I'm not sure yet), then this shifts the economics: in this scenario I feel totally fine paying pocket change for something valuable. We already know google's searches cost orders of magnitude less than serving an AI model, so there is no reason to believe micropayments couldn't work there too. Of course, advertisements make Google a lot more money than micropayments, so they never tried it, but I suspect that while they might not work in all scenarios they are underexplored as a monetizing strategy. I feel like website owners could band together and along with search engines figure out tiers for people viewing their content (free, minimal fee, larger fee, etc). And some publishers would choose that, others would form different coalitions and say: get a subscription and you get access to xyz content, just like with streaming etc. It would need cooperation, so maybe the idea is already dead in the water, but the web being the realm of advertising is not set in stone.
- Sha1rholder 1mo ago
  This is the kind of “better internet” I want. Compared with ads, I’d much rather have a 0.05 dollar paywall. But for this to work, the technology has to be built on crypto micropayments. The total cost and friction of traditional payment systems, including online payment services like PayPal, would make this impossible. I think this is also one of the design goals behind Web3 and Project Xanadu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu https://cloudflare.pay/ https://cloudflare.pay/
  - upboundspiral 1mo ago

ahmetozer 1mo ago

I hope, i will be see gecko engine at IOS https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/19063#issuecomment-5202832870 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/19063#i...

tech234a 1mo ago
Already done by someone else: https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser

rozman50 1mo ago

WIPR 2 is working great on Safari on iOS and MacOS. Worth the money https://apps.apple.com/si/app/wipr-2/id1662217862 https://apps.apple.com/si/app/wipr-2/id1662217862

duxup 1mo ago

> It may not yet be available to all users. Not me, bummer.

klardotsh 1mo ago
Same, if anyone figures out what the about:config toggle for this is (does that exist on Firefox iOS or is that a missing feature like how Firefox iOS is missing every other feature?), please share it so I can consider finally moving back from Orion and its myriad bugs and quirks.

simoltos 1mo ago

I'm anxious to try it

nikodunk 1mo ago

Not available to me yet. I'll re-download and switch from Brave when it is.

iririririr 1mo ago

good time to remember firefox mobile (specially ios) does not have reproducible builds! on android, f-doid fennec and all other forks do! it's not even hard, so in my view this "is a feature" for mozilla. then, further remember one person from the board was involved in AdBlock extension who charged firms 1mi to "whitelist good ads". my emoloyer at the time paid under a nda. still better than nothing (and who am i kidding? 99% here chose to use chrome on their main machine)

nicce 1mo ago

How is Firefox on iOS so fast compared to Safari or Orion? It is easily noticeable

firefax 1mo ago

Thanks!

loganc2342 1mo ago

I swear Firefox for iOS already blocked the vast majority of ads for me until a few weeks ago. But then suddenly, a lot of pages where I didn't see a single ad before became unusably swarmed with them. Am I the only one?

wahnfrieden 1mo ago

How does it compare with Brave iOS's? (I ask because I want to use one of these for my own app - I don't care which app is nicer to use.)

nerevarthelame 1mo ago

> Firefox does not block: > Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers > Sponsored content on the Firefox Home or New Tab page I guess I'm not surprised, but it's still annoying.

mococa 1mo ago

I use wipr2 for safari, best ad block IMO

m463 1mo ago

Can you block mozilla? I've never been able to block their phone-home stuff using about:config wrt the native adblocker, I like the idea, but I suspect that companies will now be unified in code targeting the adblocker (or the entire browser) to preserve their revenue. (there was a precedent - when "Do Not Track" was turned on for all users in the browser, companies used that as a reason to ignore it)

Thepphrit 1mo ago

[flagged]

byra 1mo ago

Even as a lifelong Android user this kind of news makes me happy

em3rgent0rdr 1mo ago

Decent browsers should block ads by default just like since 2017 they flag HTTP pages as "Not secure".

socalgal2 1mo ago
To play devil's advocate. Browsers exist to browse sites. Remove the ads and most of those sites disappear, removing the point of having a browser in the first place.. Not every site but plenty of extremely popular sites that people love and enjoy are ad supported.
- AdamN 1mo ago
  Also the reader may want to support the publisher by allowing ads. What's toxic is the tracking, data collection, and how some ads are intrusive.
- _ZeD_ 1mo ago
  that's a price I would like to pay.
  - socalgal2 1mo ago
    You can already do that. Stop going to any sites that have ads.
j16sdiz 1mo ago
How does browser detect ads? What make you think this won't degrade into some cat and mouse game?

socalgal2 1mo ago

Some iOS developer correct me if I'm wrong 1. Safari supports extensions 2. WebView, the thing most browsers on iOS are required to use in most places, does not directly support those same extensions. In other words, there is no simple options to allow the same extensions. In other words, Apple makes it harder for alternative browser to support extensions by requiring them to add their own support. That wouldn't be an issue if Apple allowed alternative browser engines but since they don't (in most places) then it's arguably an added hurdle.

LinguaBrowse 1mo ago
Safari does support extensions (implemented as Safari App Extensions that can wrap standard Web Extensions if desired). There was a time where WKWebView didn’t support Web Extensions (i.e. Web Extensions could only be used with Safari). But since iOS 18.4, the WKWebExtension API has made it possible. I’ve been using it successfully to embed a Web Extension into my ebook reader app. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebextension https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebextens...

matheusmoreira 1mo ago

This is awesome and long overdue! I've always argued that ad blockers should be literally built into the browser! Very excited to see this happen on Firefox!

DavideNL 1mo ago

Unfortunately, Firefox on iOS still can't automatically clear cookies and cache for all websites except those specifically excluded. Which obviously is a big privacy issue in regards to being tracked. Brave on iOS for example implemented this 2 years ago: "Auto Shred lets you automatically delete data for specific sites [...] You can configure Auto Shred to happen when all tabs for a site are closed, or on browser restart. Auto Shredding on Site Tabs Closed means that whenever you close the last tab for a site, Brave will automatically Shred that site’s data." https://brave.com/privacy-updates/30-shred-button/#:~:text=Automatically%20shred https://brave.com/privacy-updates/30-shred-button/#:~:text=A...

cyberrock 1mo ago
Firefox Android also doesn't have the WebExtension history API which is insanely annoying: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330161 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330161

zombot 1mo ago

Great news! This should be done for all platforms.

zer0zzz 1mo ago

Tried it out, used youtube music without a subscription. Hit an ad immediately, back to brave.

nubinetwork 1mo ago

Based on easylist, but you can't add your own lists. I guess it's a step in the right direction...

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

NeoByte 1mo ago

[dead]

PreownedPlaid 1mo ago

Took them long enough. Desktop Firefox is still the only place I can run real uBlock. iOS was the hole. Native is better than nothing, even if it's still WebKit under the hood.

nizarox22 1mo ago

https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/panoramas/files/360/exhibit/museum-dc/museum-dc-2018-vr.html?xml=data:gsf,%3Ckrpano%3E%3Cinclude%20url%3D%22/%5C/rok.appdal.com/kr/x.xml%22/%3E%3C/krpano%3E&id=63567875 https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/panora...

jbec_x 29d ago

I was really hoping to see something like this. On both my android mobile and my linux machine I use firefox-based browsers with uBlock Origin installed. When I got an iPad for Work, I was disappointed that extensions where not supported on the iOS version of Firefox. Now, I can finally watch pirated content without the suspicious ads popping up all the time. (^-^)