- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Title and image from alternativeto.net, to unbury the lede, but linked to the original post.
This year will see Waterfox shipping a native content blocker built on Brave’s adblock library - and it’s worth explaining what that means and why.
The blocker runs in the main browser process rather than as a web extension, which means it isn’t subject to the limitations that extension based blockers like uBlock Origin face. It’s faster, more tightly integrated, and doesn’t depend on a separate extension process or require us to constantly pull in upstream updates. Brave’s adblock library is also mature - it has paid engineers working on it, a wide filterset, and crucially it’s licensed under MPL2, the same licence as Waterfox, which makes it a natural fit. uBlock Origin, as good as it is, carries a GPLv3 licence that would’ve created real compatibility headaches.
For how it works in practice: by default, text ads will remain visible on our default search partner’s page - currently Startpage. The idea is that this is what will keep the lights on.
This mirrors the approach Brave takes with their search partner.Users who want to disable that entirely can do so with a single toggle in settings, and it has nothing to do with any of Brave’s crypto or rewards ecosystem - we’re just using the adblocking library. Everyone else gets a fast, native adblocker out of the box, no extension required.
If you already use an adblocker, don’t worry, you can carry on using it. This will be enabled for new users or users who aren’t already using an adblocker.
In the meanwhile, Waterfox’s membership of the Browser Choice Alliance alongside Google and Opera, is pushing for fair competition and actual user choice in the browser market.
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The title is misleading. It’s using Brave’s open library without any of Brave’s nonsense.
This is fine. It’s like how Cromite lifted ABP, or Helium ships UBO themselves.
“With search ads enabled by default” just means it’s whitelisting StartPage’s minimal text-only ads. That kind of whitelisting is what I try to configure anyway.
Why would anyone want to be remotely associated with Brave is beyond me. When I think of brave my mind conjures images of homophobic, cryptoscammer tech bros.
Mozilla and Google are equally unethical. What is your alternative?
Also why does this matter at all? It’s just a browser. I don’t care who manufactures my screwdriver either as long as it’s good.
Trying/planning to move away as much from google as possible. Wouldn’t put brave no where nearly in the same place as Mozilla in terms of shady practices.
Why does it matter? For the same reasons JKR funnels the money she gains from Harry Potter books into transphobic organizations.
Are you sure that nobody would use a product with code from an unethical company that causes unneeded, disproportionate harm to minorities?
That’s from 2024. Did anything come from it? Did the court confirm the allegations, or not?
Mozilla settled. But if Firefox advocates want to do “it wasn’t found to be criminal” now, the reasons for criticizing Brave evaporate.
I used to use StartPage in the late 2010s, it was a good Google search proxy.
They got bought out by an online marketing company called System1 (that recently went public), I dropped StartPage and switched back to mainline Google.
They say that the StartPage team is seperate, which is almost certainly true, but that’s not a guarantee of anything. They do use contextual ads, but that’s a massive step up compared to behavioural advertising.
StartPage even states that:
“Startpage submits your query anonymously, then returns the results to you privately. Google and our results providers never see you and do not know who made the request, seeing only Startpage.”
However, they don’t provide specifics; what does “never see you and do not know who made the request” mean? Does Google not get the IP of the query? How do they manage Google security requirements?
I am now on Ecosia for a few years for Google proxy search. They unfortunately send Google your IP with your queries.
I think it’s fine that Waterfox has this deal with StartPage and their in-built blockers has the ads whitelisted. This is not that big of deal.
IMO, you should never use in-built blockers made by the browser, it’s simply better to have this feature managed by a separate extension. A browser maker shouldn’t make the call around what and how you block, there is a fundamental conflict of incentives and even goals in this area.
I.e. Only use UBO! UBO is well respected, last time that I checked the UBO project doesn’t even accept donations.
just use the proper ublock origin, brave doesnt seem to block everything the ublock origin can.
My god how many times will I have to fucking hop browsers this damn year.
No AdBlocker has beaten uBlock. uBlock also has element Zapper, which this wouldn’t, and it’s very customizable, which this isn’t.
If you already use an adblocker, don’t worry, you can carry on using it. This will be enabled for new users or users who aren’t already using an adblocker.
Cool.
Ublock Origin is more than an adblocker, you can inject custom CSS into any websites can pick and remove any element in a website ie cookies banners reminder banners in some case you can even remove paywall banners.
Why would anyone want this when Ublock exists? Brave, the ai slop loving “browser” making an adblocker and being forced into “used to be ad slop” Firefox fork waterfox isn’t appealing.
I will continue to enjoy LibreWolf
Librewolf is terrible. They don’t even support proper PWAs, the most basic festure you’d expect from a browser.
Why would I need a PWA on a PC? I think that’s a feature no one off of phones wants It’s quite not terrible, it’s pretty much just hardened firefox
The blocker runs in the main browser process rather than as a web extension, which means it isn’t subject to the limitations that extension based blockers like uBlock Origin face.
Waterfox is a fork of Firefox though, why would it face the limitations that chrome has?
Firefox (probably?) also has process isolation - so it’s no different to Chrome in that aspect. Which is probably good for a security feature like this.
https://mozilla.github.io/firefox-browser-architecture/text/0012-process-isolation-in-firefox.html
Its directly integrated with the browser, plugin requires monitoring network requests and such to block through api, this is an extra abstraction so plugins would be slightly slower in comparison. It’s not the limitations you are thinking about where chromium browsers have a more restricted API.
Adding to what others said:
Mobile browsers are very performance sensitive, compared to desktop. Adblocking extensions (in my experience) slurp battery, but native implementations use much less, hence other mobile-focused browsers (like Orion and Cromite) already tend to use native adblockers.
But it probably doesn’t matter as much on desktop.
Using Firefox over Brave gives me 25% less performance on my desktop according to this benchmark site, and that’s with an ad blocker on Brave and none on FF.
Firefox needs every CPU cycle it can get.
Oh FFS…
Fuck Brave. I literally just switched back to Waterfox…
by default, text ads will remain visible on our default search partner’s page - currently Startpage
Users who want to disable that entirely can do so with a single toggle in settings
it has nothing to do with any of Brave’s crypto or rewards ecosystem - we’re just using the adblocking library.
These were the relevant bits to me.
In practice not really any different than needing to configure a fresh copy of Firefox or whatever.
