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Safari content blockers are awful compared to UBlock and I’m a Safari user. Not only does YouTube either get through or cause weird issues, YouTube now blocks you until you completely disable the extension. Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to work.


If I go to buy something, I switch off ad blocking on that page, at the very least, on the checkout page. Ads can even be actually relevant there.

If the page is too ad-ridden to tolerate, I may consider to just close that page, and go search for other options.

I use Firefox + uBlock Origin, because going to the wide commercial internet without some form of ad blocking is like going out without an umbrella when it's raining heavily.


If I go buy something and it requires me to disable my adblocker or my VPN I just look for another place to buy.


Yep, I absolutely will not play these stupid games with retailers. If you want my business, don't expose me to malware.


Local shops don't generally expose you to malware.

The big deal was allegedly these small shops exposed you to viruses, but Walmart, Kroger, and Lowes did not.

Make it make sense.


Yeah, I had large corporations in mind.


Ad networks are a high traffic way to spread malware. I would never recommend disabling a blocker, especially on commerce sites.


Usually checkout pages don't have pesky ads galore, or any. But such a page usually has a ton of anti-bot scripts, such as captchas and other privacy-invading checks.

Ad blockers usually block such stuff, for a good reason. But I don't mind it on a checkout page specifically though, because on a checkout page I wilfully disclose a ton of my private details, such as name, address, etc.

Good checkout pages work well with an ad blocker on.


>I use Firefox + uBlock Origin

Wasn’t Mozilla accused of selling data they collected from Firefox users?

Correct me if I’m wrong.


Even with all the drama Firefox is still an excellent browser, definitely better for privacy and uBlock than Chrome.


They removed wording in their FAQ saying that they wouldn't sell data. It's a subtle distinction, and may or may not make a difference depending on your perspective.


It was overblown.

It's just the paradox of when you present yourself as "the good guys" - people will hold you extra accountable for things that others easily get away with as nobody expects them to do better.

Unfortunately, Mozilla tends to shoot themselves in their foot this way somewhat often.


Being the good guys is the only reason anyone still uses Firefox. If Mozilla doesn't want to be the good guys, we'll use one of their many forks that remove the bad guy code.


Zen, LibreWolf, and Waterfox are privacy minded Firefox forks.


Suggest using a service like NextDNS or Pi-hole for DYI ad blocking at the DNS/network level. I started with pi-hole but the hassle of updates and most importantly not having it available outside of my home network pushed me to a service like NextDNS which works on any network (5G, work, etc)


If you think manifest v3's adblocking is bad, DNS-based adblockers (eg. NextDNS or Pi-hole) is even worse. It can't do any filtering based on urls or elements, so any first party ads will be able to get through.


First party ads aren't evil usually tho. If someone builds their own ad infrastructure they might as well build it properly because they know it's going to be their fault if someone uploads something fishy.

In my experience only the big ad networks let you post anything. Small specialized ad platforms usually have actual moderation.

Edit:// by the way it wasn't that hard to get ads trough ublocks filters by self hosting them either. But that's rarely really evil and I never saw that abused.


Though it might be a good second layer of defense.


to get any actual work done with DNS based blocking (ie. visiting Google ads, or their other dashboards) you quickly have to start whitelisting a ton of sites, which applies everywhere.


Okay. Step back a second.

You're telling me you block ads, but have to unblock ads to view your ad sales?

Is this in the DSM-V?


What blocker do you use? I don’t have these problems with AdGuard in Safari


I’ve used Wipr for a long time. And Wipr 2. Will checkout AdGuard.


1Blocker also gives me a good YouTube experience.


In Safari, how is AdGuard better than AdBlock?


Apparently, it doesn’t have the described issues. I also use AdGuard on iOS/Safari and see only occasionally desperate ads. I expect ad networks to target this with mv3-hard methods now that it will become widespread, but up until now it just worked.

Apple and google did everything for you to not know about it. It’s not the first thread where people either don’t know about it or will read but won’t try.


The only time I use Safari is when the MBP is unplugged because it improves the battery life. I have the AdBlock extension but I'm looking for something better.


Me too, but shhh.


>Not only does YouTube either get through or cause weird issues, YouTube now blocks you until you completely disable the extension

Works fine on my machine. You might need to update your filter lists or try another content blocker app.

>Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to work.

So don't enable the filter lists that try to block cookie banners?


Can you recommend a blocker? I have one (adblock pro), but I cant seem to find where to update the lists and sometimes YT does weird things :)


https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-adblock-privacy/id1047...

There's also a new extension that was posted on hn a few weeks that's free and claims to have scriptlets to block youtube ads as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43204406#43208085


Bypass the YT website entirely.

You can perform video search through DuckDuckGo, Invidious, or Piped.

The latter two are often blocked themselves, copy the video URL and feed to mpv to play through your preferred video player on the command-line:

<https://mpv.io/>


Clarifying: Invidious/Piped video playback (and often the video webpage itself) may be blocked, even if the search pages work.

Recent mpv / ytdl can almost always gain access. If you are blocked, check for updates to ytdl (which mpv typically uses for video/media downloading).


YouTube has been playing a cat and mouse game, disabling some accounts until disabled, randomly re-enabling them. I personally think it's so when people talk about issues like this - people say "Well, it's been ok on my end". But it's definitely some kind of A/B testing.


Oh absolutely. YouTube will 100% try new ad blocking technology for only a specific strata.


Nit, but "stratum" is the singular.


Firefox Focus' integration with Safari works well for ad blocking while general browsing.


That doesn't match my experience. I use 1Blocker and Purify on Safari and see very, very few ads.


That’s nonsense. AdGuard + SponsorBlock.

I almost exclusively use Safari and I havent seen a single ad in almost a decade




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