We’ve been anticipating it for years, and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.
Now that it is finally happening, many seem to be oddly resigned to the idea that Google is taking away the best and most powerful ad content blocker available on any web browser today, with one article recommending people set up a DNS based content blocker on their network 😒 – instead of more obvious solutions.
I may not have blogged about this but I recently read an article from 1999 about why Gopher lost out to the Web, where Christopher Lee discusses the importance of the then-novel term “mind share” and how it played an important part in dictating why the web won out. In my last post, I touched on the importance of good information to democracies – the same applies to markets (including the browser market) – and it seems to me that we aren’t getting good information about this topic.
This post is me trying to give you that information, to help increase the mind share of an actual alternative. Enjoy!
I just use DNS or VPN for adblocking , no need for browser addons
This isn’t sufficient. I’ve been running DNS adblocking for a decade, advertisers have wised up to it and can easily sidestep it.
Oh I run DNS adblocking on the router and protons adblocking on the VPN . That seem to cover everything. I use ublock on the job PC though.
how about adguard dns?
To my knowledge, DNS blockers not only miss a ton of ads, they also trigger several false positives.
A better solution is to switch to something not chromium like Firefox or whatever alternative the next Linux person to read this comment recommends
Ublocks lists are available as hostlists as well. Yea Firefox for the PC , vanadium (chromium) for the phone. No problem running all of it as well , if you have a little bit of power to spare. Haven’t had any issues on adguard DNS plus proton adblock
Firefox also has a mobile app with full extension support on Android, including uBlock origin
Yea problem is however that using Firefox on Android is using Firefox and chromium WebView. Så twice the problems. Sticking to vanadium. No issues at all as far as I noticed regarding adblocking. Next phone will hopefully be a Linux one. If there ever is such a thing that works and matches mid-top level androids. Then it will be a Firefox based one (not the standard one as it is riddle with Google stuff)
I’ve been using Firefox on Android since it came out. I’ve had 0 issues.
And as far as I’m aware, the newest version of Android Firefox (previously called “preview” doesn’t use an ounce of chrome, even for temporary browser pages