I was using a friend's phone for checking something online the other day, and I was horrified at how much screen real estate was wasted on ads. I've become far too used to having adblock on mobile, and I had forgotten how bad it can be.
I always find it jarring, because I'm so surprised that people put up with it and just accept it as normal. I get that I am an extreme outlier when it comes to my willingness to tinker and also my stubbornness that makes me extremely willing to spend a heckton of time to solve problems that are annoying me, but for many people, switching to a different browser and using uBlock would be trivially easy, but they just don't, even if they know that's an option. I don't understand the mindset that leads to it.
I have that on Desktop, but I think that perhaps when I was installing various add-ons for Firefox mobile, this wasn't yet available as a mobile add-on. Whatever the reason is for me not having it installed on my mobile, I thank you for bringing it to my attention; I have now installed it.
Have you tried ReVanced? I love having SponsorBlock, DeArrow thumbnails, and the ability to remove YT Shorts entirely from the app. The YouTube patches are amazing!
"Chromium-based browsers like Vanadium provide the strongest sandbox implementation, leagues ahead of the alternatives. "
and
"Chromium has decent exploit mitigations, unlike the available alternatives. "
Since I myself lack the knowledge and skills to judge this, I have to trust the word of the developers.
Edit, correction. They do mention Firefox
"Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface."
Merely asserting something and explaining it to my satisfaction (as a developer myself) are two different things. I don't want to have to read through both codebases myself, but I would have liked the Graphene OS devs to cite some examples to prove their point.
Seriously. I've never heard of firefox being more vulnerable than chrome. It could be, but realistically not many groups are looking for exploits in a browser with 3% market share
Really? Didn't seem to to me; I just installed latest GrapheneOS on my pixel 9 this weekend, and Vanadium definitely let Google Adsense crap all over many sites I visited.
Is there a way to enable effective ad blocking that I missed?
It’s a shame they’ve trashed Firefox on iOS. Doing anything involving the home page takes over a second. Closing a tab and reshowing the Home Screen, even just showing the Home Screen without closing a tab takes ages.
Apple is the one blocking you from having Firefox. Webkit with a different skin is all you ever had to begin with, because apple is a huge bag of cocks
Brave is owned by a horrible dude. I’d recommend Orion by Kagi instead. It supports desktop extensions for both Chromium and Firefox. The ones I use at least function perfectly fine.
I did mention Brave to try to elicit different recommendations. I'll likely give Orion a try soon, although it does seem newer and less stable from what I've seen just looking it up now.
That being said, is there anything about that guy other than his trying to make money by tying crypto wallets and so on into the Brave browser?
Brendan Eich was caught donating $1000 (in two batches of $500, so hardly an accident) to California Proposition 8 in 2008. When called out on this, he doubled down on it, and shortly after he resigned from Mozilla. After that he founded Brave, and gathered money from investors. Among those investors was Peter Thiel’s investment fund “Founders Fund.” Thiel being co-founder of PayPal alongside Elon Musk and others, and is well known for the dystopian horror company that is Palantir.
Thank you for all the links, but nothing is more persuasive than his Wikipedia page.
I guess I could look past one or two of those things. But his support for Prop 8 and his publicly criticizing masking during the pandemic are big no-gos for me. One shows that he lacks basic empathy, and the other shows that he thinks highly of his uninformed opinion, even to the point of betting other people's lives on it.
Every browser on iOS is but Brave somehow has baked in adblocking. I use it often especially for YouTube because it blocks ads there but can’t get any other way, I’m aware of, to block YouTube ads on iOS.
At some point, the EU ruled that Apple can't force browsers to use WebKit anymore, but I believe no browsers actually created a separate version afterwards, because Apple can still force that outside of the EU.
If i am not mistaken google say "it's for stability"
Stability my ass, if i want my browser being unstable with extensions then i'il do it, fuck google.
This alone is why it's my main mobile browser but man they could really improve the UI. it's very sluggish with animations and components that aren't material for no good reason. the browser itself is also a bit laggy but i can excuse the page rendering.
it's probably impossible to meaningfully implement, but if I could make a userChrome.css for the mobile app I would definitely enjoy it more
Hadn't considered this as a possibility. Thanks for mentioning it — I'll have a look into it when I get a chance to. Even if it doesn't end up being possible, it sounds worth looking into.
I just installed GrapheneOS on my pixel 9 this weekend, and was surprised the default Vanadium browser doesn't have Google AdSense ripped out or an ad-blocker as default.
(To verify, try visiting slashdot.org with Vanadium, vs. Iron Fox with uBlock Origin).
As a result, I set IronFox to my default browser and am loving it. Why does GrapheneOS not have an ad-blocking solution in the default build? Seems like a big feature they could brag about.
What? I really thought Chrome on Android supports extentions. I've been using Kiwi browser, which is based on Chrome, for a couple of years and it's had extention support all the time...
I want to get away from any Chrome based browser, but for android I really can't stand anything other than Kiwi. I've tried all non-chrome based browsers and they all feel like shit to use.
Though I've recently had issues with Kiwi not playing nice with websites in my country , Sweden, and the ID verification app used for many things here and the only browser I've found where it always works is Ecosia. That's weird since it's based on Firefox but no other Android based Firefox browsers play well with the ID thing either, not Firefox itself, Fennec, IronFox etc. only Ecosia... But the Ecosia version is very barebones and I'd never use it as my main browser.
61 Comments
Asetru@feddit.org · 93 pts · 288d
I only have two extensions...
... and yet, that alone makes me loathe any other mobile browser that doesn't support them.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 14 pts · 288d
I was using a friend's phone for checking something online the other day, and I was horrified at how much screen real estate was wasted on ads. I've become far too used to having adblock on mobile, and I had forgotten how bad it can be.
I always find it jarring, because I'm so surprised that people put up with it and just accept it as normal. I get that I am an extreme outlier when it comes to my willingness to tinker and also my stubbornness that makes me extremely willing to spend a heckton of time to solve problems that are annoying me, but for many people, switching to a different browser and using uBlock would be trivially easy, but they just don't, even if they know that's an option. I don't understand the mindset that leads to it.
Asetru@feddit.org · 2 pts · 287d
The "A" is for "apathy".
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 287d
"Video Background Play Fix" is also nice if you are a YouTube user. Background playing of Videos without the need for Premium.
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 288d
JShelter and uBlock Origin here 🫡
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de · 8 pts · 288d
ToXCancel is nice too sometimes
then_three_more@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 288d
Similar for Instagram and tik tok https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/social-switch/
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 288d
Libredirect generalizes the concept and implements it for a variety of websites
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 288d
I have that on Desktop, but I think that perhaps when I was installing various add-ons for Firefox mobile, this wasn't yet available as a mobile add-on. Whatever the reason is for me not having it installed on my mobile, I thank you for bringing it to my attention; I have now installed it.
Asetru@feddit.org · 1 pts · 287d
As I'm not into microblogging I kinda don't need it, but yeah, I get why it might be useful.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 287d
Add bypass paywall clean and Augmented Steam and you have mine
NotJohnSmith@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 287d
You couldn't link me to the exact bypass extension you use could you please?
vaionko@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 287d
Consent-O-Matic is nice too, clicks through cookie popups automatically
zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com · 2 pts · 288d
Combine with uninstalling all YouTube apps
Rusty@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 288d
pipepipe app is much better YouTube client and it comes with ad blocking and sponsorBlock.
taxon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 287d
Have you tried ReVanced? I love having SponsorBlock, DeArrow thumbnails, and the ability to remove YT Shorts entirely from the app. The YouTube patches are amazing!
grue@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 288d
And yet the GrapheneOS people recommend their own "Vanadium" hardened version of Chromium instead, for reasons I don't understand.
Metz@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 288d
It is explained here https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
They don't explicitly mention Firefox but:
and
Since I myself lack the knowledge and skills to judge this, I have to trust the word of the developers.
Edit, correction. They do mention Firefox
grue@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 288d
Merely asserting something and explaining it to my satisfaction (as a developer myself) are two different things. I don't want to have to read through both codebases myself, but I would have liked the Graphene OS devs to cite some examples to prove their point.
REDACTED@infosec.pub · 10 pts · 287d
Seriously. I've never heard of firefox being more vulnerable than chrome. It could be, but realistically not many groups are looking for exploits in a browser with 3% market share
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 288d
And the complete inability to block ads is just a non issue. Ok.
cole@lemdro.id · 7 pts · 287d
vanadium has adblocking
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 287d
How does that work, without any extensions?
cole@lemdro.id · 2 pts · 286d
it's just built in
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 287d
Really? Didn't seem to to me; I just installed latest GrapheneOS on my pixel 9 this weekend, and Vanadium definitely let Google Adsense crap all over many sites I visited.
Is there a way to enable effective ad blocking that I missed?
cole@lemdro.id · 1 pts · 286d
I'm not sure I think it's enabled by default. look in the settings to be sure. works pretty well on my grapheneos pixel 8
jet@hackertalks.com · 2 pts · 284d
Can you show us where the adblocking is? I just went through all my vanadium settings and found nothing.
YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 288d
It’s a shame they’ve trashed Firefox on iOS. Doing anything involving the home page takes over a second. Closing a tab and reshowing the Home Screen, even just showing the Home Screen without closing a tab takes ages.
carrylex@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 288d
Maybe blame your shitty iPhone that forces every browser to use Webkit instead of Mozilla/Firefox.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 288d
Apple is the one blocking you from having Firefox. Webkit with a different skin is all you ever had to begin with, because apple is a huge bag of cocks
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 288d
Just stick with safari. All IOS web browsers only use WebKit anyway. You can use extensions on safari like uBlock Lite or AdGuard. Works well for me.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 287d
Orion on iOS will let you use uBlock and other extensions. It’s not perfect but it’s the best I’ve found
logicbomb@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 288d
I've been using Brave on iOS. I haven't looked into extensions but it has an adblock built-in, and it seems to run pretty well.
Dojan@pawb.social · 13 pts · 288d
Brave is owned by a horrible dude. I’d recommend Orion by Kagi instead. It supports desktop extensions for both Chromium and Firefox. The ones I use at least function perfectly fine.
logicbomb@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 288d
I did mention Brave to try to elicit different recommendations. I'll likely give Orion a try soon, although it does seem newer and less stable from what I've seen just looking it up now.
That being said, is there anything about that guy other than his trying to make money by tying crypto wallets and so on into the Brave browser?
Dojan@pawb.social · 7 pts · 288d
I don’t get why you’ve been downvoted. Asking for more information is perfectly fine.
Brave has had a history of really slimy behaviour.They used Tom Scott’s name, without his consent or involvement to ask for crypto donations. They’ve hijacked referral links, and then gone all “whoops that was an accident.” You literally can’t do that kind of thing by accident.
Brendan Eich was caught donating $1000 (in two batches of $500, so hardly an accident) to California Proposition 8 in 2008. When called out on this, he doubled down on it, and shortly after he resigned from Mozilla. After that he founded Brave, and gathered money from investors. Among those investors was Peter Thiel’s investment fund “Founders Fund.” Thiel being co-founder of PayPal alongside Elon Musk and others, and is well known for the dystopian horror company that is Palantir.
So that’s the kind of company Brave is.
logicbomb@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 287d
Thank you for all the links, but nothing is more persuasive than his Wikipedia page.
I guess I could look past one or two of those things. But his support for Prop 8 and his publicly criticizing masking during the pandemic are big no-gos for me. One shows that he lacks basic empathy, and the other shows that he thinks highly of his uninformed opinion, even to the point of betting other people's lives on it.
Dojan@pawb.social · 3 pts · 287d
Living up to your username, I see!
Snowpix@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 288d
He supports and donates to anti-LGBTQ organizations and right-wing groups. He's a piece of shit.
logicbomb@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 288d
If that's true then I will switch today.
T4V0@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 288d
Both are just Safari reskinned, right? Or did that change?
NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com · 2 pts · 288d
Every browser on iOS is but Brave somehow has baked in adblocking. I use it often especially for YouTube because it blocks ads there but can’t get any other way, I’m aware of, to block YouTube ads on iOS.
Ephera@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 287d
At some point, the EU ruled that Apple can't force browsers to use WebKit anymore, but I believe no browsers actually created a separate version afterwards, because Apple can still force that outside of the EU.
YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 288d
Everything ok iOS uses WebKit.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 11 pts · 288d
If i am not mistaken google say "it's for stability" Stability my ass, if i want my browser being unstable with extensions then i'il do it, fuck google.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 287d
Im shocked they haven't banned this.
For a short time Firefox mobile got rid of extensions and man I have not felt so betrayed by a corporation as I did seeing those "update"s.
I swear Mozilla always does its best to ruin any good brand image they have.
It's gotta be a secret term to their default google search contract or something.
RickAstleyfounddead@lemy.lol · 6 pts · 287d
Bad time for Firefox.
Atleast they brought back Extensions shortly
ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 288d
laughs in AdGuard
Still love the 🦊 though.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 9 pts · 288d
With uBlock you can remove cosmetics and some page elements, the best setup is nextdns/pihole/adguard + uBlock origin
Xylight@lemdro.id · 8 pts · 287d
This alone is why it's my main mobile browser but man they could really improve the UI. it's very sluggish with animations and components that aren't material for no good reason. the browser itself is also a bit laggy but i can excuse the page rendering.
it's probably impossible to meaningfully implement, but if I could make a userChrome.css for the mobile app I would definitely enjoy it more
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 287d
Fuck chrome.
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 287d
I wish the full page translation works for Taiwan mandarin. It can do China-nese but not Taiwanese or HKnese.
DahGangalang@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 288d
Been using Cromite as my daily driver browser. It doesn't allow "real" extensions, but I guess devs built in Adblock Plus, which is really neat.
Def wish I could have Old Reddit Redirect and my dark reader apps on it tho. Keep a Firefox browser around primarily for that.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 288d
There's a native dark mode in Cromite. Go to
about:flagsThe setting isAuto Dark Mode for Web Contentsand it has a few different settings to try....And while I love dark reader, it's quite chonky, even on desktop.
As for old Reddit, I think you can edit host files on android?
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 288d
Hadn't considered this as a possibility. Thanks for mentioning it — I'll have a look into it when I get a chance to. Even if it doesn't end up being possible, it sounds worth looking into.
Meron35@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 288d
FYI you can't edit the hosts file on Android without root
DahGangalang@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 288d
Orly??? I'll def need to look up the hosts file bit.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 287d
I just installed GrapheneOS on my pixel 9 this weekend, and was surprised the default Vanadium browser doesn't have Google AdSense ripped out or an ad-blocker as default.
(To verify, try visiting slashdot.org with Vanadium, vs. Iron Fox with uBlock Origin).
As a result, I set IronFox to my default browser and am loving it. Why does GrapheneOS not have an ad-blocking solution in the default build? Seems like a big feature they could brag about.
Welp_im_damned@lemdro.id · 2 pts · 288d
What's interesting is that Google is developing a special version of chrome on Android that supports extensions
https://www.androidauthority.com/try-new-chrome-for-android-with-extensions-3569268/
edgemaster72@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 288d
After they neutered extensions with manifest v3, why even bother?
M137@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 288d
What? I really thought Chrome on Android supports extentions. I've been using Kiwi browser, which is based on Chrome, for a couple of years and it's had extention support all the time...
I want to get away from any Chrome based browser, but for android I really can't stand anything other than Kiwi. I've tried all non-chrome based browsers and they all feel like shit to use. Though I've recently had issues with Kiwi not playing nice with websites in my country , Sweden, and the ID verification app used for many things here and the only browser I've found where it always works is Ecosia. That's weird since it's based on Firefox but no other Android based Firefox browsers play well with the ID thing either, not Firefox itself, Fennec, IronFox etc. only Ecosia... But the Ecosia version is very barebones and I'd never use it as my main browser.