Why a built-in Ad Blocker?
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Sorry for my question, but I really don't understand.
If it is for the Google threat ("Web ad giant Google to block ad-blockers in Chrome"), I agree 100% because I can't surf the web without an ad-blocker.
If you introduce an ad-blocker built-in, all the people that use UBlock Origin would demand the same funcionality that UBO has.
Some examples:
"Ad-blocking sure is an interesting new feature. I assume "Manage Blocker Rule Sources" will be coming, as it's not activated at the moment?"
"This is awesome! But it would be great if it can support custom filters and element pickers for those pesky popups that just won't go away (the intrusive ones assuming the built-in blocker didn't work on some elements and whatnot). I could always go back to uBlock or something but having a native implementation is the way to go."
In other words, if it is not like UBO I could go back.
"Does it block auto-playing videos on various sites? And consider making it work on websites that stop access when detecting an adblocker."
So the people won't be satisfied if the built-in ad-blocker give the same funcionality that UBO and Nano Defender.
Why do we need a UBO and Nano Defender inside Vivaldi, if UBO and Nano Defender are excellent extensions and they are Open Source and because of that there are no problems with security.
Moreover the funcionality of a built-in is imposible to be the same as UBO.
So why to expend resources of the developers if we have extensions excellent if not perfect, like UBO and Nano Defender.
The attribute of extensions : Specialization leads to excellence.
What is next?
"Automatic Dark theme for sites something like dark reader addon"
A Dark Reader built-in?, or maybe Stylus, Tampermonkey, AutoPagerize, Dragit!, I don't care about cookies, Imagus, and so on.
In a month make a poll:
1.- How many of you use an ad-blocker extension like UBO?
2.- How many of you that use UBO use the ad-blocker built-in?
I assure you would be close to 0%.
I understand a browser like a Tree. Has to have strong and long roots and a powerful trunk, but the leafs, flowers and fruit are provide for extensions and depends on eveyone.
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@barbudo2005 We had to assume a post like this was inevitable. Continual pressure to add a feature and then criticism for adding the feature.
Extensions consume additional resources and present possible security holes.
If someone desires not to use the built-in but rather an extension instead, that's their prerogative. Vivaldi is about options.
There has been an ongoing clamor - Why doesn't Vivaldi have an ad blocker? I can't switch to Vivaldi unless it gets an ad blocker. You're not secure. You don't have an ad blocker. Browser A has an ad blocker, why doesn't Vivaldi? How can you call yourself modern/secure/privacy-conscious/user-friendly when you don't have a built-in ad blocker?
Now, just as Classic Opera did, Vivaldi has an ad blocker. It also has a tracker blocker. More users will be happy than will not - and that is the final barometer for whether to acquiesce to user requests, as Vivaldi has done here.
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I think here the things mix up with android browser. In android if we don't have extensiones then a built-in ad blocker is a must.
"Extensions consume additional resources and present possible security holes."
I have a simple Intel i3 and more than 20 extensions and I don't see sluggishness.
Why UBO is more insecure despite is open source than Vivaldi that is not.
"If someone desires not to use the built-in but rather an extension instead, that's their prerogative. Vivaldi is about options."
You are right but in a world where the resources are boundless, but this is not the case.
"More users will be happy than will not - and that is the final barometer for whether to acquiesce to user requests, as Vivaldi has done here."
Is Vivaldi going in the right direction?
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@barbudo2005 Vivaldi is going in the direction its founder and employee owners determined at the outset. The reason for its existence is to provide flexibility and options to a class of users who began to lose these with the global dumbing-down of browsers.
It was not conceived to be the king of the market or to appeal to the largest mass of users. It was brought into being expressly to serve the segment of the market that was cast adrift when the philosophy of Classic Opera was abandoned in the browser markeplace.
So, it is going in the direction it is meant to go in.
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The adblocker will be useful especially for android as we can't (yet) use ubo there
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That Vivaldi Android supports extensions is certainly desirable (at the moment I am satisfied with Blokada) In the Vivaldi desktop, for flexibility I don't know if a built-in adblocker or one of the excellent FOSS adblockers is preferred (uBO, nano Adblocker) be better.I think that for the privacy and independence of Vivaldi, an own App Store would be more important, as other browsers have, with a good selection of Open Source extensions.This also avoids certain incompatibilities that still exist with Chrome Store extensions.
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@barbudo2005 said:
How many of you that use UBO use the ad-blocker built-in?
A more relevant poll might be to see how many users used an ad-blocker extension before it was built-in. Vote for this post if you did; vote for the next post if you did not.
I use an Ad-blocker extension.
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I do not use an Ad-blocker extension.
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Blocking ads is important, not only for security and privacy, but also for the inconvenience they can cause and can also slow down the page load considerably on PCs and basic mobiles with few resources.Although you can block ads also at the system level (as with Blokada on Android) it is not as efficient as with for example uBO.
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@Ayespy said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
Extensions consume additional resources and present possible security holes.
I fully agree.
And what happens when John Doe decides supporting extension 'A' is too much work or worse to sell it off? -
@greybeard said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
or worse to sell it off?
This eventuality has converted hundreds of different popular, perfectly innocent extensions into data vampires. New owners, new policy, now we spy on you.
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@Ayespy and @greybeard
I fully agree with you when "John Doe" decide to sell it.
When that occurs somebody will fork the app like Stylus did it with Stylish.
In the meantime 95% of Vivaldi users will continue to use UBO and Nano Defender despite a built-in ad-blocker exists (in desktop).
In a month I will be waiting for the poll I suggest.
The develop of Vivaldi and this Forum remember me the situation is occurring in my country Chile.
On 18 of October the people revels for inequality that exists in my country, so the people requests things to solve it.
The women request to have minimum 45% of women in the convention to redact a new constitution. On 8 of March 2 million women gather in the street. So the Parliament make the law to do it. A good decision.
Some people want the President renounce because he has 84% of disapproval. A bad request from the people, that will not prosper.
So the "developers" of the country has to decide which of the requests has to prosper and which don't.
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I use uBlock Origin in the current stable version of Vivaldi.
Will the built-in ad-blocker be as good as uBlock Origin?
Is uBlock Origin being updated, yet?
Opera currently has a built-in ad-blocker. It does NOT seem to be as good as uBlock Origin in stable Vivaldi.
When Vivaldi Stable gets the built-in ad-blocker/tracker-blocker, I will use it. I trust Vivaldi completely, even if I am not having any issues with uBlock Origin currently. uBlock Origin is a separate process I won't need in the future, hopefully.
Thank you for the development of an ad-blocker and tracker-blocker, Vivaldi. Thank you, also, to the this thread's starter who asked a good question.
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How built-in Ad-Blocker works, does it have filter lists like UBO and can we set them up? Can we manually pick an ad from a page to block it? Or should we use both built-in and UBO?
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@d_A_y_x It does use filter lists, like ublock, but you can't set them up right now. Currently, if you have the standard filter lists of ublock enabled, there is no reason to enable Vivaldi's adblock, because the setup would just run one of the lists 2 times. Hopefully in future Vivaldi will enable us to load our own filter lists, at which point you can disable the filter lists in ublock and just use it to block elements. But to be honest ublock has useful functionality, like unblocking certain filters for specific sites and it is questionable that Vivaldi will introduce a likewise sophisticated setup. In the end manifest version 3 by chrome will decide the usefulness of the native adblock.
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I just recently, before the announcement of the built-in adblocker, bought the Adguard program. Not just for the browser, but because it also blocks ads in the MSN News and Sports apps. So since I'm out that money, I'll probably leave the built-in blocker turned off when it comes to Vivaldi stable.
BTW, before Adguard I was using UBO.
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We had to assume a post like this was inevitable. Continual pressure to add a feature and then criticism for adding the feature.
@Ayespy I don't think @barbudo2005 necessarily meant criticism for adding the feature. I'm sure we all know and appreciate that V's built-in ad-blocking is a recent addition, and won't be feature-complete or even stable yet. I think @barbudo2005 meant to ask, "what does V's built-in ad-blocker bring to the table? Is it better than UBo? Which one should we use? If UBo is best, is V's built-in ad-blocker a wise use of limited resources?"
My personal opinion is that such a feature is very important on the mobile platform, where extensions such as UBo aren't yet supported. On the desktop, it is still important as "insurance". Firstly, it protects me in those few moments of a new installation before I have installed UBo (and other privacy-protecting addons); and secondly, it protects me if the maintainer of a privacy-protecting addon "sells out", becomes compromised, or has a conflict of interest. Finally, it ensures that some sort of content-blocking is possible, even if G decide to rip-out the APIs that existing ad-blocker extensions use to perform their functions. In short, a built-in ad/tracking blocker is still useful and worthwhile, even when it is not as comprehensive as an extension such as UBo. It's an extra layer of protection.
I would be happy to view ads (even though I never click on them and they don't influence my online or offline purchases) - but I refuse to be tracked, profiled, targeted, served malware or have my bandwidth stolen. An ad should be a low-resolution static image, otherwise it is costing me too much money, CPU and RAM to view. It should be context-based, not "targeted". Additionally, given the risk of malware infection due to ad-networks shoddy security practices, it's not worth the risk, anyway. In short, until the ad-networks clean up their act, they only have themselves to blame for the proliferation of ad-blockers. I only block ads because I block tracking and malware. The fact that such an action eliminates virtually all ads is very revealing.
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Why do we need a UBO and Nano Defender inside Vivaldi, if UBO and Nano Defender are excellent extensions and they are Open Source and because of that there are no problems with security.
Moreover the funcionality of a built-in is imposible to be the same as UBO.
So why to expend resources of the developers if we have extensions excellent if not perfect, like UBO and Nano Defender.
This definitely reads like, "You should not have wasted your time when there are good extensions."
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@Ayespy said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
Extensions consume additional resources and present possible security holes.
Well, to be fair, so does additional native functionality. Whether it's an extension or native code, they both must parse the URL, compare it against some kind of filter list, and determine how to handle the request. Being native code doesn't magically make this free -- it still must consume memory for the filter lists and CPU cycles for processing requests.
One of the benefits of running uBlock Origin is that it results in a net reduction of resource consumption, page load times are reduced and you have a better experience than if you didn't have the extension. uBlock Origin also outperforms its big name competitors like AdBlock Plus. ABP inserts this massive style sheet into every "page" load (that includes stuff like frames), whereas UBO optimizes the styles prior to injection.
@greybeard said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
And what happens when John Doe decides supporting extension 'A' is too much work or worse to sell it off?
This has happened in the past. Since these tools are open source, anyone is free to fork the code and continue the project in whichever direction they like. In fact, the reason for the somewhat cumbersome name uBlock Origin is precisely this. After trying to to hand off maintenance of the project, the developer saw the direction that the project was going as the new maintainer began to monetize the project. The uBlock Origin fork was created and today is considered one of the best blocking extensions.
Should gorhill decide he's tired of working on the project, or worse, to use the typical example, gets hit by a bus, users need not wait for someone else to fork and continue the project. There already exist quality forks providing very similar experiences. You can even migrate all your filters and rules and not suffer the pains of building those from scratch. Users are in good hands.
One could similarly ask what happens when the browser itself decides to cash out, or if it is no longer feasible to maintain it. Unfortunately, in this case, the project is not fully open source. That doesn't stop me from utilizing Vivaldi as my primary browser across all my devices. It's a fantastic tool that I'll use as long as it remains so, same goes for uBlock Origin and uMatrix.
@barbudo2005 said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
In the meantime 95% of Vivaldi users will continue to use UBO and Nano Defender despite a built-in ad-blocker exists (in desktop).
I doubt the use rate is even close to half that. uBlock Origin, while amazing, lacks the recognition that extensions like ABP have. I doubt that even when combined they reach 95% together. The number of threads in which I've introduced UBO and helped people with it. And then running UBO together with Nano Defender the percentage drops even further, especially considering that simply installing Nano Defender isn't enough to get it to work. Though I assume anyone running Nano Defender is also running UBO Extra.
In a month I will be waiting for the poll I suggest.
The results, whatever they may be, are unlikely to be representative of the Vivaldi user base as a whole.
The develop of Vivaldi and this Forum remember me the situation is occurring in my country Chile.
Interesting times for the world we live in, though this is not at all a valid analogy.
@treego said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
Is uBlock Origin being updated, yet?
What do you mean? uBlock Origin has been in active development since its inception years ago.
@fred8615 said in Why a built-in Ad Blocker?:
I just recently bought the Adguard program. Not just for the browser, but because it also blocks ads in the MSN News and Sports apps.
BTW, before Adguard I was using UBO.
Ouch... I suppose you needed to buy AdGuard to use it on those 2 apps? For use in the browser, uBlock Origin's functionality and price (nothing) seems to be the better option. I wouldn't probably still run UBO as my browser extension if I needed to buy AdGuard for some apps. I'd have to do a bit more investigation into how that blocking in the apps works to know for certain, but having it already set up and working, there's no reason to replace it with respect to browser privacy and security.
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In the meantime 95% of Vivaldi users will continue to use UBO and Nano Defender despite a built-in ad-blocker exists (in desktop).
I mean 95% of Vivaldi users that now use UBO and Nano Defender will continue to use UBO and Nano Defender despite a built-in ad-blocker exists (in desktop).