Firefox and Chrome are squaring off over ad-blocker extensions

[t3chg33k]

As expected, Google is trying its best to cripple adblocking extensions, besides allowing for more data collection. This is likely to also be enforced on Chromium as a whole, so have to see if other Chromium-based browsers have the guts to diverge from Google. As of now, only Mozilla has refused to accept the Manifest V3 in entirety.

Firefox and Chrome are squaring off over ad blocker extensions

A browser privacy showdown has been brewing for a while.

www.theverge.com

Firefox boosts privacy by giving “total cookie protection” to all users by default

It’s the latest salvo against invasive user tracking by Big Tech.

www.theverge.com

 

[ibose]

All the more reason to move ad-blocking to network wide i.e. either your router or a DNS sinkhole like Pi-hole or Adguard Home

 

[gourav]

All the more reason to move ad-blocking to network wide i.e. either your router or a DNS sinkhole like Pi-hole or Adguard Home

That's exactly what Google wants, to make ad blocking more complex so fewer people do it.

So far it has been as easy as installing an extension and as it is very few people use it. Imagine setting up, what basically is a Linux based DNS server, just to block ads. Only a tiny minority of Internet users will ever do that.

I am reasonably tech savvy. I have even set up PiHole once. And still didn't deploy it network wide because it's too much hassle to manage with an already unreliable Internet connection. I'm just adding another point of failure and more debugging steps. It's too much mental overhead to block some ads.

 

[t3chg33k]

All the more reason to move ad-blocking to network wide i.e. either your router or a DNS sinkhole like Pi-hole or Adguard Home

There are still cases where you'd depend on device or browser-level ad-blocking like when on the move or when using work laptops. But even beyond ad-blocking, extensions like uBlock Origin also reduce fingerprinting, WebRTC tracking which is not catered to by DNS alone.

We need more control over the browser and not less, contrary to what Google is trying to do. In an ideal world, people would make the better choice but considering how ingrained Chrome and Chromium is, for most users, this is unlikely to happen.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening

 

[ibose]

That's exactly what Google wants, to make ad blocking more complex so fewer people do it.

So far it has been as easy as installing an extension and as it is very few people use it. Imagine setting up, what basically is a Linux based DNS server, just to block ads. Only a tiny minority of Internet users will ever do that.

Actually it is not that complex. Any decent router would have ad blocking option which can be easily enabled. One would expect someone who can download an extension and configure it properly to at least know, how to do that.
Another simple option is to use one of the custom DNS servers widely available which also work if you are on the move.
With options like Pi Hole, you do have the option of configuring it per device. That is what I did first and after observing for couple of months to figure out the whitelisting, I made it network wide. It has been running for a year now and no one has complained.

We need more control over the browser and not less, contrary to what Google is trying to do. In an ideal world, people would make the better choice but considering how ingrained Chrome and Chromium is, for most users, this is unlikely to happen

I am not saying that we give up the control on browsers but did we even have any in the first place ? All the popular ones are owned by for profit organizations so you have little or no control over what they will do.
As long as the source is made available and you can find well maintained forks which satisfy your specific requirements, there is still some hope.

 

[enthusiast29]

And still didn't deploy it network wide because it's too much hassle to manage with an already unreliable Internet connection. I'm just adding another point of failure and more debugging steps. It's too much mental overhead to block some ads.

What has your internet connection got to do with a local server running pi-hole? If the internet is down it's down for everything even if you have not got this local DNS server. IMO having a local DNS avoids DNS downtime issues with the ISP or with public DNS altogether. So it's technically better.

As for maintenance, it's 95% automated in DietPi. Download once and set up adlists. The adlists keep updating once in 7 days by default, I've changed that to 2 days and that's it. If you want you can update the pi-hole itself when an update is available which is like once in a month or two but it's not necessary, same goes for DietPi too.

 

[Mann]

Use Brave and this problem is automatically solved

 

[ibose]

Use Brave and this problem is automatically solved

Another for profit and with a questionable past. One has to realize that they have a business model around their browser and need to pay their staff / investors after all, so you have little or no control of what they will do next.

 

[enthusiast29]

Use Brave and this problem is automatically solved

Too much bloat like crypto wallet, rewards and shit. No thanks.

 

[Mann]

Check it's recent reviews before coming out guns blazing

 

[ibose]

Check it's recent reviews before coming out guns blazing

How does that matter on what they will do next ? Where is the control ?
If you accept that there is none and subscribe to their crypto based business model, then yes it is a good alternative.
I heard good things about DuckDuckGo but never used it and it's now joined MS. Then there is Tor browser.

 

[gourav]

What has your internet connection got to do with a local server running pi-hole? If the internet is down it's down for everything even if you have not got this local DNS server. IMO having a local DNS avoids DNS downtime issues with the ISP or with public DNS altogether. So it's technically better.

As for maintenance, it's 95% automated in DietPi. Download once and set up adlists. The adlists keep updating once in 7 days by default, I've changed that to 2 days and that's it. If you want you can update the pi-hole itself when an update is available which is like once in a month or two but it's not necessary, same goes for DietPi too.

This is an oversimplification. It's like saying building a table is just cutting some wood, hammering in some nails, and polishing it, so why can't you do it on your own.

First up, if my internet connection is not working, I currently check my router, then call my ISP. With pihole, I have an additional layer to check before calling the ISP. There can be any number of reasons, pihole crashed, the computer running it lost power/crashed, whatever. But it will need to be checked.
Second is wanting to access stuff occasionally. Let's say a family member is playing a game which rewards them for watching ads. The ad won't load. So now they complain and then I have to teach them how to handle this situation, which means I myself have to learn how to handle this. Then there's the odd website which is bound to break because of Pihole. First I'll have to figure out that is breaking because of Pihole, it won't always be obvious. Then I'll have to fix it.

And we all know that stuff happens with tech, it's not smooth sailing. I have my own git server. Every once in a while, it stops working for no apparent reason and I have to restart it. I have a couple of webapps running on a VPS and every few months I have to renew their certificates, apply updates, make sure all components are still working, etc. There's a lot of overhead. It's just never as simple as set up DietPi and forget it. We wish it was, but it never is.

And all that is not even going into the fact that just setting it up took me 3-4 attempts with different tutorials and most people don't even know where to begin with Linux. Not to mention the need for additional hardware, which is not even easily available these days.

Installing a server like applications is 100x more complex than installing a browser extension, no matter how much you try to simplify the presentation.

 

[enthusiast29]

First up, if my internet connection is not working, I currently check my router, then call my ISP. With pihole, I have an additional layer to check before calling the ISP. There can be any number of reasons, pihole crashed, the computer running it lost power/crashed, whatever. But it will need to be checked.

Keep primary DNS as pihole and secondary a public DNS like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 if there's downtime on pihole then DNS queries will automatically be routed to secondary DNS.
From my personal experience it has never crashed for me in last 10 months.

Second is wanting to access stuff occasionally. Let's say a family member is playing a game which rewards them for watching ads. The ad won't load. So now they complain and then I have to teach them how to handle this situation, which means I myself have to learn how to handle this. Then there's the odd website which is bound to break because of Pihole. First I'll have to figure out that is breaking because of Pihole, it won't always be obvious. Then I'll have to fix it.

For this there are two options. You can disable/bypass pihole by web interface.

OR you can setup a guest network/wifi where pihole is not used. I've setup the latter for more convenience and also to isolate my work laptop from my home network.

Finally, if you're still not comfortable to deploy your own solution you always have the choice of using something like Adguard DNS which is free.

 

[ibose]

Keep primary DNS as pihole and secondary a public DNS like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8

Off topic but that will reduce the ad-blocking capabilities even when Pi-Hole is up and running. Both DNS entries need to be the one for Pi-Hole for full ad blocking as the secondary DNS does not really work as a failover/backup.

 

[enthusiast29]

Off topic but that will reduce the ad-blocking capabilities even when Pi-Hole is up and running. Both DNS entries need to be the one for Pi-Hole for full ad blocking as the secondary DNS does not really work as a failover/backup.

Personally I've setup primary and secondary both to pihole and my pihole uses unbound and no upstream DNS since I've never seen failures locally and I have a guest network without pihole so I don't have any issue.

I just suggested what most tutorials do.

 

[ibose]

I just suggested what most tutorials do.

I will leave this here just in case then (mine hasn't failed either; I have it powered from a UPS and cron a reboot each Sunday night) -

Why should Pi-hole be my only DNS server?

Reduced Ad Blocking Capability The main reason you should Pi-hole as your only DNS server is that you will see increased performance in the blocking of ads. If you have two DNS servers (Pi-hole and something else), your network clients may not always query Pi-hole for name resolution. If a...

discourse.pi-hole.net

 

[greenhorn]

My router and extender already has a ton of dhcp issues. Pihole made it worse. And it doesn't help that my pi becomes non responsive once in a week or so. Gave up after that

 

[t3chg33k]

Off topic but that will reduce the ad-blocking capabilities even when Pi-Hole is up and running. Both DNS entries need to be the one for Pi-Hole for full ad blocking as the secondary DNS does not really work as a failover/backup.

It totally depends on the router. When I used Pi-Hole in the past, I tracked the queries with and without the secondary DNS (which I used to set as the Adguard Public DNS). All queries went to the Pi-Hole till it was shut down.

Most routers are designed to switch to secondary only when the primary is busy or unreachable, so the proportion of queries going to the secondary DNS is not going to be much and if you specify a public ad blocking DNS, then you will still continue to get generic ad blocking.

Of course, if you can set up ad blocking on the router itself (like Adguard Home on Asus Merlin), then there is no issue of configuration at all.

Check it's recent reviews before coming out guns blazing

Brave has been sketchy since day one and the CEO actually had to step down from Mozilla after several controversies.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoamList/comments/q4z5js

It is ridiculous that people think Brave is any better when they just add some privacy options to Chromium by default. At the end of the day, they are trying to create a walled garden of their own in terms of browser, search, ads so that they can mine all the data themselves while restricting access to others.

They have also repeatedly pursued legal action against forks that tried to strip their data collection which should tell you what their end game is.

 

[MadAxe]

Actually it is not that complex. Any decent router would have ad blocking option which can be easily enabled.

There are very few budget routers that have ad blocking capabilities on stock firmware.
Can you share how to block ads on router level (stock firmware) without Pihole?

 

[t3chg33k]

There are very few budget routers that have ad blocking capabilities on stock firmware.
How were you able to block ads on router level without Pihole?

Either use a public ad blocking DNS like the one from Adguard or if your router supports Entware, then there is a possibility of setting up Adguard Home on it.

Also, having used both, Pi-Hole and Adguard Home are functionally equal. Adguard Home is more polished, much lighter and supports more platforms, something that you expect from a paid team. Pi-Hole is preferable if you want to rely on a community driven project and don't trust companies in general.