Google is Killing uBlock Origin. No Chromium Browser is Safe.
www.quippd.com
We’ve been anticipating it for years,1 and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.2 Daly Barnett. “Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening.” EFF, December 9, 2021. ↩ Lawrence Abrams. “Google warns uBlock Origin and other extensions may be disabled soon.” Bleeping Computer, October 13, 2024. ↩

Google is weakening ad blockers as part of their MV3 extension standard and this will trickle down into all Chromium browsers. Built in ad blockers lack features compared to uBlock Origin as well.

  • frezik@midwest.social
    252·
    18 days ago

    Highly recommend setting up a PiHole. It may not be quite as comprehensive as uBlock, but it cuts the ads way down, and it’s not something that browsers can easily bypass. You do have to make sure to shut of DNS over HTTPS, or setup a separate solution for that to tunnel into PiHole.

    • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      17 days ago

      aaaaaaand then there’s Android.

      Android will not remove your default DNS, and will only use added DNS servers as additional rather-than instead of.

      edit: this is only if you aim individual devices at a pihole instance and not wrapping your whole network or vlan to pihole. If you’re forcing every request the phone makes, it doesn’t matter and this is moot.

      There are free apps that make localhost VPNs on your device to bypass this that force your network to use a chosen DNS server.

      This is also a built-in function of Tailscale, setting Tailscale’s DNS to Pihole or Adguard, and were you running wireguard or openvpn already, you could use them as entrypoints as well.

      Mullvad and other paid VPN services often also offer to use DNS servers that blocks ads, tracking and malware.

      • Tinks@lemmy.world
        7·
        18 days ago

        Pihole has always worked as expected on my Pixel phones. To the point that I have to drop off of our wifi to visit some sites when they don’t load correctly. Pihole is happening at the router level though, not a setting on my phone. Unless Android starts tunneling around it (I wouldn’t put this past Google), then all traffic will continue to go through Pihole since it’s going through our router. Any device connected to our network has Pihole as its DNS.

        • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          17 days ago

          Ah, I see. That’s my big difference. I’m penciling it into each device as the chosen DNS server per device, which Android doesn’t like.

          I’ve never trusted that one raspberrypi enough to aim my whole router at it and hope my network stays up while I’m gone.

          • Tinks@lemmy.world
            1·
            17 days ago

            Makes sense. We send everything through it by default and then we have a separate device group for non-Pihole DNS handling. Devices such as work computers that might get weird or have issues get put in this group. Everything else is by default put through Pihole until we have a reason otherwise.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        3·
        18 days ago

        Not sure that’s right on all phones. Browsing on my Pixel 6 shows noticeably fewer ads when I’m at home compared to anywhere else.

        • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          17 days ago

          My scenario is under the assumption that you’re selectively aiming individual devices to Pihole’s DNS and not aiming your entire network at it.

          I’m holding a Pixel 6 too.

          Underrated phone, gets a lot of flak.