I said it for Waterfox and I’m gonna say it again for Firefox: this is good. At worst, it’s just fine (Mozilla just uses it internally to replace or supplement its old and incomplete Tracker Blocking system, which never gets the same scrutiny).
The biggest difference between Firefox and Waterfox in implementation is the WaterFox developers noticed this FF change early, and committed to providing full-fledged ad blocking out of the box, which is great news for users.
A few more reasons this is good:
Rust is faster than JavaScript
Native functionality is faster than an extension
Actual ad blocking is something Firefox users have been begging Mozilla to do
At worst, it’s just fine (Mozilla just uses it internally to replace or supplement its old and incomplete Tracker Blocking system, which never gets the same scrutiny).
I think you’re right but I’m sure they can fuck it up a lot worse than that if they really want to. AI ad detection? Sponsored blocking? New RCE pathways?
I think its much more likely than not a step forward, and I welcome the change, but recent Mozilla decisions have me watching closely.
My faith in Mozilla has dimmed a whole lot over the past few years, but if they feel like making Firefox worse, I don’t think they need to do it this way. More code does mean more vulnerabilities, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding a half dozen other features that could have been extensions. This one could actually be beneficial, as it would cut down on the performance requirements for users, especially mobile ones.
Using entirely unrelated ad blocking technology is bad for what reason?
You can feel free to moralize, but be consistent: Mozilla bought an NFT company to integrate their code into Firefox, and that’s not the only skeleton in their closet.
seems a bit dangerous though to risk for a browser with so small market share
They should have built it in years ago, but called it “web security filtering” or something and included only a basic security blocklist, but left it easy to add other lists.
From my unprofessional glance ar their repository, it uses a little, but not much. Take a look at their code; all or most of the filtering is done in JavaScript, the webassembly appears to be just one two modules. (It’s in the “wasm” folder near the top of the list).
(Edit: I was looking at outdated code; the
newer version uses more, but IMO pales in comparison to the JavaScript filtering logic)
seems a bit dangerous though to risk for a browser with so small market share
Waterfox has a much smaller market share and much smaller budget, and was able to clear this with search partners just by promising not to block ads on them by default.
Waterfox has a much smaller market share and much smaller budget, and was able to clear this with search partners just by promising not to block ads on them by default.
my point is not actually about search providers, but more generally websites intentionally breaking support for gecko based browsers. waterfox itself is too little, most developers don’t even know about it I think. but firefox is the flagship/reference gecko browser, with more of a measurable number of users. if they implement a good ad blocker in the base browser, that could discourage advertising related sites from serving/supporting this browser.
brave is different in that it uses chromium, which the sites just happen to support already because of chrome. but firefox support is often not a priority even today
I said it for Waterfox and I’m gonna say it again for Firefox: this is good. At worst, it’s just fine (Mozilla just uses it internally to replace or supplement its old and incomplete Tracker Blocking system, which never gets the same scrutiny).
The biggest difference between Firefox and Waterfox in implementation is the WaterFox developers noticed this FF change early, and committed to providing full-fledged ad blocking out of the box, which is great news for users.
A few more reasons this is good:
I think you’re right but I’m sure they can fuck it up a lot worse than that if they really want to. AI ad detection? Sponsored blocking? New RCE pathways?
I think its much more likely than not a step forward, and I welcome the change, but recent Mozilla decisions have me watching closely.
My faith in Mozilla has dimmed a whole lot over the past few years, but if they feel like making Firefox worse, I don’t think they need to do it this way. More code does mean more vulnerabilities, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding a half dozen other features that could have been extensions. This one could actually be beneficial, as it would cut down on the performance requirements for users, especially mobile ones.
Using technology from a known crypto scamming developer is not good.
Using entirely unrelated ad blocking technology is bad for what reason?
You can feel free to moralize, but be consistent: Mozilla bought an NFT company to integrate their code into Firefox, and that’s not the only skeleton in their closet.
Oh they have a whole cemetery of a city in the basement.
Still doeant excuse it IMO.
Does it need an excuse? It’s a good change. If you have a reason to dislike it, please provide one.
I can hate more than one of Mozilla’s decisions.
Zewm forgot to have a reason. Do you have one?
isn’t ublock’s filtering compiled to webassembly?
seems a bit dangerous though to risk for a browser with so small market share
They should have built it in years ago, but called it “web security filtering” or something and included only a basic security blocklist, but left it easy to add other lists.
still it wasn’t blocking ads, and even I as a poweruser was not aware that I could add externally maintained ad blocklists
From my unprofessional glance ar their repository, it uses a little, but not much. Take a look at their code; all or most of the filtering is done in JavaScript, the webassembly appears to be just
onetwo modules. (It’s in the “wasm” folder near the top of the list).(Edit: I was looking at outdated code; the newer version uses more, but IMO pales in comparison to the JavaScript filtering logic)
Waterfox has a much smaller market share and much smaller budget, and was able to clear this with search partners just by promising not to block ads on them by default.
my point is not actually about search providers, but more generally websites intentionally breaking support for gecko based browsers. waterfox itself is too little, most developers don’t even know about it I think. but firefox is the flagship/reference gecko browser, with more of a measurable number of users. if they implement a good ad blocker in the base browser, that could discourage advertising related sites from serving/supporting this browser.
brave is different in that it uses chromium, which the sites just happen to support already because of chrome. but firefox support is often not a priority even today