> Does ad blocking affect search engine ads?
> No. Ads shown on search engine results pages are not blocked.
A lot of the search results on top of Google are there to scam you, providing phone numbers for pass through services that charge $ for it, like flight cancellation:
So this omission should absolutely be addressed, but they probably cannot because of the Google Search contract...
NikxDa 3 hours ago [-]
I was going to give credit to the direction Mozilla was taking here after their... questionable decisions in the past few year(s).
Only to see that this is neither generally available, nor can you use it without enabling telemetry. I don't know who makes these decisions inside Mozilla, but I just don't get it.
mossTechnician 2 hours ago [-]
I think you can use it without enabling telemetry, due to a recent change:
> Previously, access to these changes required you to share technical and interraction data (telemetry) with Mozilla. However, as of Firefox version 148, you can opt into receiving remote improvements, even if you have opted out of sharing your telemetry or participating in our experimental studies.
> access to these changes required you to share technical and interraction data (telemetry) with Mozilla
How did that even happen? I sure hope that was a bug and not a product decision, because that sounds very backwards.
nemomarx 2 hours ago [-]
I think for their labs / beta features they just require it to get testing data
KennyBlanken 2 hours ago [-]
Mozilla lost the thread about a decade ago with the Mr. Robot crap.
1)Agreeing to it in the first place
2)Hiding it from users
3)Circling the wagons and setting the bugzilla ticket to a secrecy level so high all but upper management couldn't even view it, and marking all the related tickets as 'wontfix' and so on. The tickets are full of complaints that mozilla staff aren't being remotely transparent about what was going on or decisions being made.
Oh, and the kicker? It exposed the fact that Mozilla was employing people from adtech companies. The project manager for the Mr. Robot bullshit had her entire career worked at advertising companies.
The bug kept bouncing between being secret and public, and I remember seeing it was the PM who kept trying to make it secret, and then some unknown dickhead exec at m
bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1423003
Then there was the fact that the CEO was making more and more money as she drove Mozilla into the fucking ground with cratering market share numbers. Then there was Mozilla's absurdly expensive taste in real estate...
> If you’re a Firefox user, you may have noticed a weird new extension that suddenly showed up in your browser this week.
> The extension is called “Looking Glass 1.0.3” and this is its description: MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT FROM YOURS. Now that sounds ominous. It’s really not, though. It’s a promotional campaign between Firefox and the TV series Mr. Robot that brings an alternate reality game to your browser. This must have sounded like a great idea when somebody pitched it to Mozilla, but the backlash has been fierce.
embedding-shape 1 hours ago [-]
Besides the other sources, here's the HN discussion at the time:
In 2017 Mozilla silently installed an extension promoting the TV show in everyone's Firefox.
WD-42 3 hours ago [-]
It's been days (weeks?) and I'm still waiting for the option to appear for me. These "experiments" are super annoying when you are on what I'm assuming is the long tail of a rollout but the marketing/blog posts speak of the feature like it's already launched.
If there's someone at Mozilla reading this: turn it on already! I want to get off Orion, it's so buggy, but the internet is unusable without an ad blocker.
embedding-shape 3 hours ago [-]
> but the marketing/blog posts speak of the feature like it's already launched.
Yeah, seemingly tons of companies do this in a very weird way. Either make the switch 100% once you publish the press release, or wait until you reach 100% then publish. Starting the experiment with gradual rollout and then making the press release immediately seems like asking for potential problems and confusion among users.
temp0826 2 hours ago [-]
I was under the impression that firefox could already use the Safari "content blockers" (as it uses webkit) like Firefox Focus and uBO Lite, but I'm not seeing that option actually. Been using Orion for a while now so not sure if that changed or I'm just misremembering it.
Melatonic 2 hours ago [-]
Is it that buggy ? Orion works pretty well for me. Where you have you ran into bugs ?
nxc18 1 hours ago [-]
Randomly the new tab page stops working. And when the new tab page stops working, all browsing activity stops working until I restart the app. I think the pages load, but I can’t actually see them because it is hidden by the new tab page.
Also sometimes tabs disappear from the tab picker, which makes tab management confusing.
WD-42 2 hours ago [-]
The address bar likes to randomly move off the side of the screen and I have to force restart the app to get it back.
doublepg23 3 hours ago [-]
Safari + the Content Blocker Wipr works well for me.
Barbing 2 hours ago [-]
Better title suggestions?
Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS [Non-GA]
?
peri-cl 2 hours ago [-]
> "ads shown in search results will still appear"
Is that for a technical reason or a commercial one?
yapyap 2 hours ago [-]
commercial
overflowy 3 hours ago [-]
FYI: Doesn't block YouTube ads.
quaintdev 2 hours ago [-]
Google will stop paying them if they tried that.
nkozyra 2 hours ago [-]
A weird line to draw since Google still owns the general ad web space.
doikor 2 hours ago [-]
It doesn’t cost cost google money to show that content. (It does cost someone else who google would be giving a cut of the ad revenue)
YouTube videos actually have some real world disk space, bandwidth, etc costs just to show so if google doesn’t get to show an ad they lose money instead of an opportunity to make money.
LeoPanthera 2 hours ago [-]
I'm regularly surprised that people are willing to block YouTube ads. I know that Google gets that advertising money too, but you're also blocking revenue that the channel owner would otherwise get. I suppose it might depend what you're watching, but most YouTubers aren't big business, they're just individuals.
YouTube Premium is one of the few subscriptions I am completely happy to pay.
barbazoo 2 hours ago [-]
It doesn't have to go through Google. Lots of us support the people they follow through patreon et al, I don't need to make the gigacorp even richer than it is. They have enough.
bitpush 6 minutes ago [-]
Why do these creators use YouTube then? Why cant they host it on s3 and the have you directly compensate? Surely the creator is getting some value from YouTube and YT expects to be compensated for that?
seanyeh 1 hours ago [-]
Many people are not aware that for smaller creators, Google forces ads on their videos (without consent) and takes all the revenue
DarmokTanagra 2 hours ago [-]
when they stop placing ads arbitrarily in the middle of a sentence or scene Ill stop blocking them
hn_submit 1 hours ago [-]
Without ad blocking YouTube is simply unwatchable / unbearable.
ncr100 2 hours ago [-]
Youtube decides the thresholds, the payouts, the promotional algorithms.
izzydata 2 hours ago [-]
I inherently disagree with the ad model of business. Intentionally worsening a product with ads to convince people to pay to remove them is just rewarding them for enshitification.
So on that front I'd prefer YouTube go out of business so that something like Nebula can take its place. Or the only videos left at\re the ones doing it as a hobby and not as a job.
garrettjoecox 2 hours ago [-]
Any reason to use this over uBlock Origin Lite?
temp0826 2 hours ago [-]
Just mentioned in another comment, but I'm not sure Firefox on iOS can actually use webkit content blockers? (I thought it could but have been using Orion exclusively for a while now)
basedpolymer 2 hours ago [-]
UBlock Origin Lite on Safari iOS is still king I guess
rrgok 2 hours ago [-]
Does it do cosmetic block of just DNS block?
basedpolymer 1 hours ago [-]
The same as on macOS. Comzmeti. And dns block
wredcoll 2 hours ago [-]
Is there an android equivalent?
MYEUHD 2 hours ago [-]
uBlock origin on Fennec F-Droid
busymom0 2 hours ago [-]
Thanks to your comment, I just installed it and set it up. Thanks!
GeekyBear 1 hours ago [-]
This is the sort of user focused feature you add when you take the phrase "user agent" seriously.
HexDecOctBin 2 hours ago [-]
It’s not clear from the post, are they supporting the Content Blocker API? In other words, can I use Adguard with Firefox now on iOS?
lotsofpulp 2 hours ago [-]
How is this different than Firefox Focus content blocker on iOS, which came out many years ago?
finchisko 26 minutes ago [-]
Why they don't use their rendering engine on ios at least in eu?
Can it block YouTube ads? Would be a killer feature.
skarz 2 hours ago [-]
For that, there's ProTube[1]. On the surface it behaves like YouTube Premium, under the hood it's just the mobile version of YouTube bundled into an iOS app. I have no idea why ads aren't served, I analyzed the network requests with Fiddler Everywhere and saw nothing nefarious.
> This feature is experimental and is being introduced to the Firefox user base through a progressive rollout. It may not yet be available to all users. Additionally, remote improvements must be enabled.
Apparently, you can only block ads if you allow Mozilla telemetry. Thanks, dicks.
There are some options under the debug menu which look relevant, but I wasn't able to get it to enroll.
drewg123 3 hours ago [-]
I HATE it when a company does a staged rollout of something after making a big announcement. If you're going to announce something, then don't stage the rollout. Its off by default after all..
> Does ad blocking affect search engine ads? > No. Ads shown on search engine results pages are not blocked.
A lot of the search results on top of Google are there to scam you, providing phone numbers for pass through services that charge $ for it, like flight cancellation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1p6h81i/beware_fake_...
So this omission should absolutely be addressed, but they probably cannot because of the Google Search contract...
Only to see that this is neither generally available, nor can you use it without enabling telemetry. I don't know who makes these decisions inside Mozilla, but I just don't get it.
> Previously, access to these changes required you to share technical and interraction data (telemetry) with Mozilla. However, as of Firefox version 148, you can opt into receiving remote improvements, even if you have opted out of sharing your telemetry or participating in our experimental studies.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remote-improvements
How did that even happen? I sure hope that was a bug and not a product decision, because that sounds very backwards.
1)Agreeing to it in the first place
2)Hiding it from users
3)Circling the wagons and setting the bugzilla ticket to a secrecy level so high all but upper management couldn't even view it, and marking all the related tickets as 'wontfix' and so on. The tickets are full of complaints that mozilla staff aren't being remotely transparent about what was going on or decisions being made.
Oh, and the kicker? It exposed the fact that Mozilla was employing people from adtech companies. The project manager for the Mr. Robot bullshit had her entire career worked at advertising companies.
The bug kept bouncing between being secret and public, and I remember seeing it was the PM who kept trying to make it secret, and then some unknown dickhead exec at m
bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1423003
Then there was the fact that the CEO was making more and more money as she drove Mozilla into the fucking ground with cratering market share numbers. Then there was Mozilla's absurdly expensive taste in real estate...
> If you’re a Firefox user, you may have noticed a weird new extension that suddenly showed up in your browser this week. > The extension is called “Looking Glass 1.0.3” and this is its description: MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT FROM YOURS. Now that sounds ominous. It’s really not, though. It’s a promotional campaign between Firefox and the TV series Mr. Robot that brings an alternate reality game to your browser. This must have sounded like a great idea when somebody pitched it to Mozilla, but the backlash has been fierce.
"Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser" - 757 points - Dec 15, 2017 - 515 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15931730
If there's someone at Mozilla reading this: turn it on already! I want to get off Orion, it's so buggy, but the internet is unusable without an ad blocker.
Yeah, seemingly tons of companies do this in a very weird way. Either make the switch 100% once you publish the press release, or wait until you reach 100% then publish. Starting the experiment with gradual rollout and then making the press release immediately seems like asking for potential problems and confusion among users.
Also sometimes tabs disappear from the tab picker, which makes tab management confusing.
Is that for a technical reason or a commercial one?
YouTube videos actually have some real world disk space, bandwidth, etc costs just to show so if google doesn’t get to show an ad they lose money instead of an opportunity to make money.
YouTube Premium is one of the few subscriptions I am completely happy to pay.
So on that front I'd prefer YouTube go out of business so that something like Nebula can take its place. Or the only videos left at\re the ones doing it as a hobby and not as a job.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/protube-block-ads-on-video/id6...
Please delete this before anyone sees it :)
> This feature is experimental and is being introduced to the Firefox user base through a progressive rollout. It may not yet be available to all users. Additionally, remote improvements must be enabled.
Apparently, you can only block ads if you allow Mozilla telemetry. Thanks, dicks.