
Focus by Firefox, a Content Blocker for iOS - special_guest
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/12/08/announcing-focus-by-firefox-a-content-blocker-for-ios/
======
st3fan
We just pushed the button on stage at the Mozilla All-hands. It should by live
in most countries now.

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337)

Ask us anything you want to know about this product.

Also, keep an eye on the Github repo.

[https://github.com/mozilla/focus](https://github.com/mozilla/focus)

We are still watching the Keynote but will flip the switch soon.

~~~
mikeash
What's the two-word summary of why I'd want to use this app over one of the
other content blockers?

~~~
newscracker
Again, can't sum up in two words, but can sum it up in two points. This would
be better because:

* It's by Mozilla, and it's more likely (probability wise) to be maintained and kept up-to-date than those that happen to be a single person's hobby project.

* I believe that big players in the web like Mozilla and EFF (eff.org) really fight for us, the common people. :) The more these things become popular, especially from bigger names, the better the chances of the whole ad-tracker-privacy ecosystem to improve for our good.

~~~
profeta
what about besides "known household name"? any technical merit? anything you
know you do better than the alternative, for a fact?

and in the process of fairness, any other blocker doing anything better that
you plan to add to yours?

~~~
newscracker
Technical merit? I don't really know. This is based on the open source tracker
list from Disconnect (disconnect.me).

FWIW, I was never into paying for an ad-blocker on iOS since that comes with
its pitfalls. I have tried a couple of other free ones, and I did like Adblock
Fast [1], the one I was using until Focus by Firefox and the one I still have.
It's open source and is available for Chrome (not iOS), Opera (not iOS) and
Safari (iOS 9). I'd suggest reading through the GitHub page to see some stats
as well as the philosophy (of not making money or compromising it with
acceptable ads). [2]

[1]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-
fast/id1032930802](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-fast/id1032930802)

[2]:
[https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast](https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast)

~~~
profeta
I always used someonewhocares.org host list on my wireless modems to protect
my IOS devices (which never leave the house anyway, since they exist only to
test apps/sites for people like you that do not value device ownership :)

the list that site provides blocks practically every single ad, malware, etc.
But it is not very practical to keep up to date.

------
panglott
"Currently, Focus by Firefox only works with Safari, not Firefox for iOS. This
was not our choice—Apple has chosen to make content blocking unavailable to
third party browsers on iOS. We are exploring how we can provide this feature
on Firefox for iOS and will deliver it as soon as it’s possible."

The main reason I went back to Safari after getting Firefox for iOS.

~~~
iSnow
>Apple has chosen to make content blocking unavailable to third party browsers
on iOS.

Someone has some context to this? I am using Ad-Blocker Browser on iOS and it
blocks ads just fine.

~~~
feld
is it doing its own ad blocking or is it doing ad blocking as a safari ad
block extension? There is a very specific high-performant ad block mechanism
in iOS now.

~~~
mikestew
If it's anything like the ones I looked at a while back, it goes through a
proxy to strip the ads. So all of your web browsing goes through a 3rd party.
I'm no technical wiz on such things, but I can't think of how else it _could_
work without being an Apple-approved Safari extension.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It could run a local proxy on the device itself, perhaps. I know iPhone apps
can expose HTTP servers to other devices on WiFi for file sharing, so I
wouldn't be surprised if you can expose it to localhost too.

~~~
mikestew
Mm, good point, and given that I actually wrote a baby web server for serving
up docs a _long_ time ago, I'm disappointed that it didn't occur to me. In
fact, I wonder why more don't do that. All of the ones I looked at (and it's
hardly an all-encompassing list) seemed to do it through a proxy that the dev
hosted.

------
inglor
I'm so confused here - I thought Apple added the ability to create content
blockers to reduce revenue on the web so that more content providers resort to
ADs and they get a bigger slice of the pie.

Why would Mozilla help them in their goal? Wouldn't it mean less reliance on
the web and less Firefox in the long run?

What am I missing here?

~~~
lmm
Mozilla is no longer an ideological organization, if it ever was one. This
gets them media attention and may attract more donations, which will
perpetuate the organization's existence.

~~~
emilsedgh
_Mozilla is no longer an ideological organization_

[Citation needed]

~~~
lmm
This is one example. Pocket is another.

------
byoogle
As the original developer of Disconnect, on which Focus’s blocking is said to
be based, I (with my development team) created a new, open-source ad blocker
for Chrome, Opera, and iOS called Adblock Fast
([http://adblockfast.com/](http://adblockfast.com/) and
[https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast](https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast)
on GitHub) because I think Disconnect became abandonware after I left the
project a year and a half ago – there was one commit made to Disconnect in
2015
([https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commits/master](https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commits/master)).

~~~
splouk
Is there any reason I should switch to this from AdBlock Plus?

Edit: I see the chart comparing the two on your github page. Are you planning
a firefox version?

~~~
byoogle
Yes, see the benchmarks and last FAQ on
[http://adblockfast.com/](http://adblockfast.com/).

Edit: Yes to Firefox as well, see
[https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast/issues/23](https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast/issues/23)
for timeline.

~~~
nyolfen
how does it compare to ublock?

------
donohoe
...and they don't provide a link!? Oh well.

Still, I welcome this move from Mozilla. Been wondering what to use since
'Peace' was removed.

~~~
ihuman
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337)

It's still propagating through the various servers, so it may not be available
in your region right now.

------
lowpro
"Apple doesn't abuse its power" _only allows a Firefox content blocker in
safari_

~~~
talktime
And try changing the default browser on your iPad - not possible. I don't know
why Apple gets away with anti-competitive behavior that MS was hauled over the
coals for two decades ago.

~~~
mikeash
Try _obtaining_ a different browser on your iThing. It can't be done (unless
you build one and sideload it through Xcode, or jailbreak). There are "third-
party browsers" out there, but they all use the same engine as Safari, by
decree of Apple.

However, the reason why Apple gets away with it while Microsoft doesn't should
be obvious if you're at all familiar with Microsoft's history and current
market share numbers. (Hint: MS got hit for anticompetitive behavior when they
owned ~95% of the PC OS market. Apple owns maybe 15% of the world smartphone
market.)

~~~
goerz
Are there any iOS browsers available that can be installed via sideloading
that do not use the Safari engine?

~~~
mikeash
It looks like Chromium can build for iOS, although without much of a UI. I'm
not sure about Firefox, as their official iOS version (which is just a UI for
the WebKit engine, of course) makes it hard to search for.

~~~
bzbarsky
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Gecko-
iOS](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Gecko-iOS) links to
[https://hg.mozilla.org/users/tmielczarek_mozilla.com/gecko-i...](https://hg.mozilla.org/users/tmielczarek_mozilla.com/gecko-
ios/) which exists, again without much of a UI. The build instructions are in
the wiki.

------
CPLX
If I may be permitted a n00b question, what are the advantages and
disadvantages if any to having more than one content blocker enabled? When I
installed this didn't have to disable Crystal, which I already had. Do they
just sort of function in series?

~~~
MBCook
I believe so. You just end up with more rules which slows the process down
more and more. Apple tries to be intelligent about it, but at some point if
you quadruple the number of rules installed it's probably going to take longer
to search them for matches.

------
profeta
Spending so much time on a platform that you have no control and is sure to
undermine you is a waste of open source project resources. Specially one that
is handled indirectly such as mozilla nowadays.

if it were users submitting patches or bugreports, by all means! Spend all the
time in the world to make your IOS experience better. But people donate, and
the people living off that money choose arbitrarily to spend those resources
on IOS, that is just plain irresponsible.

~~~
mconley
> But people donate, and the people living off that money choose arbitrarily
> to spend those resources on IOS, that is just plain irresponsible.

Note that when people donate, they're donating to the Mozilla Foundation, an
entity that does _not_ work on Firefox directly, but does advocacy, outreach
and education work. This is where your donation goes.

Mozilla Corporation (which is solely owned by the Foundation) works on Firefox
(Desktop, Android, iOS, Focus, etc), and does not benefit from the donations
that are sent to the Foundation. That work is funded almost entirely by
revenue generated by partnerships with search providers.

People who want to donate to the corporation do so via patches, bug reports,
testing, documentation, evangelism, etc.

(Full-disclosure - I'm a Mozilla Corporation employee, but speaking for myself
and not on behalf of the company)

------
bennyg
For those saying they can't get it - give it time to propagate through the App
Store server caches. Usually it can take a couple hours from a "Ready for
Sale" to actually being visible in different regions.

------
newscracker
Questions to the people from Mozilla who're here. How or why is this different
from efforts like Privacy Badger (from EFF)[1] when you look at what gets
blocked, the methodology used to update the blacklist, etc.? Was there any
collaboration with other prominent players working in this area (I only see
that you're using disconnect's list)?

Please note that I'm not talking about implementation details like the
creating and maintaining a content block list for Safari vs. a browser
extension on the desktop.

[1]: [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

------
deadowl
They're now favoring Firefox branding over Mozilla branding?

~~~
uncletaco
Makes sense seeing as they're focus -- no pun intended -- is pretty much
Firefox and its various incarnations throughout desktop and mobile. Expanding
their most visible brand to include their entire suite of browser based
technologies doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

~~~
ethbro
I'll take "Focus by Firefox" over "Firefox Live 360" any day. ;)

------
srameshc
Pardon me as I don't understand this blocking analytics or ads thing yet.
Wouldn't a small web business which relies on Ad money be killed with this
move ? Wouldn't someone who wants to provide content for ad money eventually
have to pay Apple some cut for displaying ads on app. Wouldn't it drive the
prices of ad as a result which would hurt small business who looks at internet
advertising for their growth strategy ?

~~~
amelius
Ads are a stupid payment method anyway. It only pays up to a few cents per
view at most. What if you want to be paid a little bit more? Overhaul your
complete monetizing scheme?

~~~
srameshc
Sorry but ads are a very effective and proven way for a web business to
generate revenue. That is all together a different discussion on what is an
effective way to monetize your web business. But my question is for small
business or startups which already have a revenue and relying on that ad
revenue. How will they be affected ?

~~~
sp332
The bottom has fallen out of the ad market recently. Anyway, content blocking
is still opt-in. That means most people will never enable it, and the people
who enable it are probably not going to click on your ads anyway. But most
importantly, if users are going out of their way to avoid paying you, your
business model is plain broken. No point trying to prop it up by banning ad
blockers.

~~~
srameshc
I wanted to stay away from the discussion weather ads are effective or not
business model. My question was what would happen to the smaller sites who
still monetize through ads.

~~~
sp332
But isn't that the same question? If ads make enough money, then they're
"effective". If they don't, they're not.

~~~
srameshc
What is not enough money for you could be enough money for someone else. It is
hardly a basis for anyone to judge other's judgement.

~~~
sp332
Of course. So we can't possibly answer your question. Maybe they will be
killed and maybe they won't.

But my point is, it's not Apple's fault at all. It's also hardly the fault of
the ad blockers. It's all due to the users who intentionally install them and
use them for their browsing. It's the users who are making the decision to
block ads.

------
newscracker
For those who don't want to wait till this propagates through the App Store
CDNs, try

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337)

Or try
[https://itunes.apple.com/{countrycode}/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/{countrycode}/app/id1055677337)
with the two character country code for your country put in the {countryside}
placeholder

For example, it would be

[https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id1055677337)
for Germany

[https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/id1055677337)
for France

[https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/id1055677337)
for India

and so on

------
viach
> This was not our choice — Apple has chosen to make content blocking
> unavailable to third party browsers on iOS

Like, the Firefox authors can't block content in their browser because Apple?

~~~
JohnTHaller
Apple won't let full third party web browsers into iOS, all web browsers have
to use the Mobile Safari engine underneath. Apple added ad blockers to iOS but
will only permit them in Mobile Safari proper. Third party "browsers" aren't
permitted to use the ad blockers you can install in iOS.

~~~
needmoreram
Admittedly, I'm quite ignorant of the laws related, but wouldn't this be
grounds for an anti-competitive lawsuit (even if the App Store terms
specifically say so)?

~~~
JohnTHaller
Those laws only apply to monopolies. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any
market segment, so they engage in quite a few anti-competitive behaviors that
would be illegal if they were a monopoly. That's why Microsoft got in trouble
for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows even though end users could
install any browser they liked while Apple is free to require iOS users only
use Mobile Safari or a browser UI running on top of Mobile Safari (Chrome,
Firefox, etc on iOS).

------
falcolas
Anyone with knowledge care to compare and contrast this with Antelope [0]?

[0] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/antelope-free-
adblocker/id10...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/antelope-free-
adblocker/id1039622141?mt=8)

------
TurboHaskal
Can it block 7254k images as well?

------
vishaldpatel
This is awesome! If there was a similar blocker for Mac, I'd totally use it.
Although, I'm not sure why it is called "Focus".

But hey, this way I can share my Firefox plugin called Focus (
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/focus-by-
caba...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/focus-by-cabana-labs/)
) - it lets you block websites so you can focus on your work :). Also
available for Chrome ( [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focus-by-
cabana-la...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focus-by-cabana-
labs/jgfmjlneealoganlfgionjllmcadobjh) ) =)

------
vitd
Note that if you search for "Focus" in the app store, you won't get any
relevant results in the first several dozen apps. I did "focus ad blocker" and
that found it.

------
perseusprime1
Crystal is messing it up these days as I see ads these days with Crystal
enabled. I think they are taking money to let ads through. Will Firefox do the
same if you get money from Google?

------
muddi900
Apparently content-blocking is not enabled for iPad 4th Gen, because I can't
any of the apps. A thoroughly useless device.

------
blondie9x
Looks like AppStore is still updating this in inventory. Might take 30-60
minutes more before we can download.

~~~
blondie9x
App is live

------
zymhan
Searching for it in the app store on my phone returns nothing. I had to
message myself the link to get to it.

------
jccalhoun
They can't build it into firefox on ios but how about building it into firefox
on other platforms?

~~~
rockdoe
That's what happened? This is the new Tracking Protection feature. By default
it's only in private tabs but you can just enable it globally in about:config.

------
free2rhyme214
This is totally aimed at Google haha

------
thepumpkin1979
I can not find it in the Colombian appstore, is it available worldwide?

~~~
devnikor
Now it should be in app store. Downloading now from Russian store

------
b15h0p
I can not find this on the german App Store. Does anybody have a link?

~~~
newscracker
Try
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1055677337)

Or try

[https://itunes.apple.com/{countrycode}/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/{countrycode}/app/id1055677337)
with the two character country code for {countrycode}

For Germany, it would be

[https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id1055677337](https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id1055677337)

------
nv-vn
can somebody explain why they need to use the Apple APIs to block content in
their own software? will apple simply not allow them to put it on the app
store otherwise?

------
processing
"focus must be enabled in settings"

Where in settings is it enabled?

~~~
mcintyre1994
It should guide you through this, but settings > Safari > content blockers,
like all others. That'll list blockers installed including this one, toggle to
enable whichever you like.

------
nathancahill
Title should be "iOS" instead of "IOS" (Cisco's router operating system).

------
gnu8
Why is it Focus by Firefox and not Focus by Mozilla? Mozilla is the name of
the company, Firefox is the name of one of Mozilla's products. So a software
program was created by another software program?

This type of illogical branding is becoming typical of Mozilla these days.
It's a shame because the web really needs browser leadership from an
organization that isn't a multinational corporation.

~~~
bad_user
I mean no offense, but out of all complaints I've heard about Mozilla's work
on Hacker News, this is probably the stupidest. What the web really needs is
less vitriol against those that actually do something.

~~~
josefresco
Not really. This irks people (rational or not) who are put off by
inconsistencies with naming and branding. I understand _why_ the Firefox brand
was chosen, but it feels "messy". We'll get over it.

~~~
bad_user
Please explain why on such a project announcement that parent comment is the
second one in the thread (instead of technical discussions, platform
limitations, privacy, trackers, alternatives, you know, things that would
actually make sense). I'm having a hard time right now to not liken HN to a
cesspool and this time the offense is intended.

------
dan1234
A 7MB png on that page (4418x3206) - that'll be the first thing I want to
block…

~~~
Jimmed
So you're judging the quality of an iOS app on how well-optimised the images
on its website are?

This is not a website you're going to visit regularly, or probably even more
than once (except to show all your friends how badly optimised this image is).

Based on this logic, I probably shouldn't have bought the car I have now,
because the brochure was printed on really thick paper.

~~~
mikeash
I see no quality-judging in that comment.

------
kdamken
Sounds neat. Would really enjoy installing and trying this out.

However, I can't for the life of me find it. Here's what I tried: -Searching
for "focus" in the app store. Unsurprisingly, a thousand things came up that
were not this.

-Searching for "focus firefox". No results.

-Searching for "focus by firefox". No results.

-In hopes that the article might have a link to the app in the app store, going to that in my phone's browser. No Luck.

-Googling "focus firefox" and looking in various news articles. Found a link in venture beat but it said the item I'm looking for isn't available in the US store.

Hopefully it will be easier to find when it gains some traction?

~~~
callahad
We literally just clicked the "release" button in the last five minutes. The
blog post went out a bit early.

------
anc84
And why I would never buy an iOS device.

~~~
joosters
Do feel free to frequent all stories about iOS and continue to spread the word
about your buying preferences. It is a wonderful use of your time.

~~~
CaptSpify
Just like the grandparent spread the word about his browser preferences....?

~~~
oldmanjay
it seems nearly impossible to believe that you honestly feel that the OP and
the reply are talking about the same topic. One is discussing experiences with
the platform discussed in the article, and one is the "I don't even have a tv"
comment in another guise. In case it isn't clear to you, "I don't even have a
tv" doesn't contribute anything to the conversation.

~~~
CaptSpify
It seems nearly impossible to believe that you don't think they are talking
about the same topic. One is discussing a platform, and the other is stating
why he won't use that platform. I respectfully disagree that it's not
contributing.

~~~
oldmanjay
The contribution is "this person does not use iOS" which is not particularly
helpful in any way, and has resulted in an off-topic metabranch. This is the
very definition of not contributing to the discussion.

~~~
CaptSpify
The contribution is an implied "I think that stance by the manufacturer is
ridiculous, and I won't even engage them." It's helpful because it highlights
the ridiculousness of the manufacturers system. Sure, it could have been
articulated better, but I think it's still contributing.

> which is not particularly helpful in any way, and has resulted in an off-
> topic metabranch

I would say that your statement has done more to forward this metabranch than
the original statement ever did.

------
s73v3r
So basically, this is going to lead to a rise in "Sponsored Content".

~~~
scott_karana
Hasn't it already? ;)

------
kdamken
If Nick is really the one who wrote that piece, it's sad that the Vice
President of Firefox doesn't know about image resizing and optimization.

~~~
callahad
That's quite a leap just to get to an ad hominem attack.

The way we have WordPress configured _should_ have handled this automagically.
I'll look into why it didn't.

~~~
kdamken
I wasn't trying to personally attack the guy, it was just surprising that an
article by one of the heads of a major tech company wouldn't have something
basic like that taken care of.

I'd recommend the tinypng plugin ([https://wordpress.org/plugins/tinypng-for-
wp/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tinypng-for-wp/)), which will do the
optimization (though not resizing) automatically for you.

Edit - More downvotes, someone is having a tough morning.

------
oneJob
How about a button that lets me choose a FireFox build using 100% OSS and
which includes zero built-in user data capture technology?

~~~
bovermyer
Sounds like you might best be served by writing your own web browser, so you
can be absolutely certain it won't track you.

~~~
oneJob
Yeah, totally good idea. No idea why I didn't just think of that rather than
hold Mozilla accountable to living up to their stated mission.

~~~
rockdoe
Data capture including things like telemetry or monitoring user adoption (does
everyone on a specific HW config suddenly stop using the product?) is
essential in being able to develop a product on a large scale that Actually
Works. All of those things can be disabled in Firefox and they go to great
lengths to explain what is tracked and how to disable it.

I'm pretty sure that keeping the product usable and working is part of their
mission too.

