I know I didn't wake up in 2011 because uBlock Origin exists. Yet someone is talking about TechCrunch, so the most likely conclusion is that uBlock Origin existed long before I thought it did, like 2011.
Also a great practice if you do any amount of browsing on mobile as it’s practically impossible to read any mobile website through all the stupid ads. Just today I was trying to read an article on my phone in a browser without ubo and was basically blocked from doing so by a full screen video ad that kept popping up on its own even after dismissing it
Firefox's built-in "Block Audio and Video" in Settings -> Autoplay seems to do a good enough job for most sites (with exceptions whenever it breaks something).
Does that help with "auto"play & PIP thats triggered by scrolling? I have not managed to completely deactivate PIP videos in Firefox settings/about:config.
I keep running into autoplayed videos in Firefox even with all the relevant settings turned up to 11. My solution to this is for the entire website to go straight into the DNS blocklist. TrashCrunch is one of those sites, and for even better reasons than just obnoxious ads.
you've tried setting media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.enabled to false? it seems to be enough for me, although about:support still shows "Picture-In-Picture" Add-on (of type app-builtin-addons) enabled.
I know of a very popular newswebsite in my region which somehow works around this: When overscrolling the video window on their site, ALWAYS the video starts to play - I have the option disabled in FF settings, nontheless its not working in this case :-X
That’s interesting. I guess Firefox is taking the scrolling as user interaction, allowing the video to play. There’s a chance Firefox would fix this, if reported.
One issue with Firefox setting is that it assumes too much that you want to disable the audio but don't care about the moving video. I care about the video not autostarting. But when I press play, then I obviously do want audio. Firefox mutes it... So now it requires two or more clicks to properly play
All of the ad-driven internet is on a timer anyways. We-re less than 5 years away from the release of the AdsAreSlurs Browser, the browser that uses a small local model to actively remove all advertisements from web content.
Sorry my question was “what does using an LLM do that ublock doesn’t?”
I see you’re saying that it obviates the needs for manual central curation. But surely we would move to (stronger) LLMs doing the curation centrally while using existing infrastructure, before trying to insert a LLM round-trip before every page fetch.
I am not the same user but I agree with their premise.
Centralised curation will have its time but marketers will move to systems which are unique to each visitor. Think 30 second ads which are unique to each visitor, built on their shopping history, social media comments, search, etc. These systems are currently prohibitively expensive to build and deploy, but they won't be with cheap LLMs. YouTube is already experimenting with ads inside streams, for example. Those are very difficult or impossible to deterministically block. Sites will get very good at agentically evading deterministic adblocking software. This is where local LLMs will shine. Consider the case of YouTube in-steam ads. The LLM could probabilistically determine that the current frames are ads (even though this particular ad is 100% unique to that visitor, and has never appeared in any ad database before), then black out the section of the screen/audio while it plays. Or fast forward until it finds where the segment ends. All in real-time, locally determined.
It does become a strange cat and mouse game in the future, but I feel quite strongly that ad blocking will win. Users will have intelligent, autonomous systems on their devices which can curate and block content as desired.
In all seriousness, far too many people think "throw AI at it" will solve every tech problem. AI remains inefficient, power hungry and mercurial. Replacing an adblocker or firewall with a constantly-running AI is as efficient and useful as rocket motors on a car.
You think that can be done just as fast as reliable?
Why would that be is own browser instead of a plugin? And his will it accumulate significant market share?
It's possible we will see an "AI first" browser (whatever this means) that gets significant market share. But getting rid of ads will not be a driver for that.
If you just want to read the text body of an article, there's plenty third party scripts you can block on Techcrunch through the advanced settings in uBlock Origin:
Years ago I had a discussion with a guy from "AdTech" company: Their companies was pushing out ads on several large websites - he said the first thing on a new computer is an Adblocker to get rid off all the shit his company is distributing across the net :-D
Disabling JavaScript by default makes this a non-issue on most sites. Just checked TechCrunch and it’s great without it. Likely like the designer intended.
On iOS, Brave browser makes toggling JS particularly easy.
90% of my mobile web browsing is without JavaScript. It’s much faster, cleaner, safer. And for the occasional website that needs JS, I can toggle it.
Similar to many here in the thread, I then tend to not visit sites anymore that require JS/are too bloated.
I do the same, but with NoScript on Firefox. Unfortunately, thanks to all the AI scraping, many sites are using some sort of bot detection, wish fails unless you have JS enabled. It's getting harder and harder to use the web without JS. Cloudflare's bot detection will also flag you for having certain privacy features enabled on your browser, which is highly irritating.
The modern web is getting worse by the day. Not coincidentally, I find myself using it less and less.
Note that an alternative in those situations is using uBlock Origin instead of NoScript, and then configure "Medium Mode" [1]
So, when blocking javascript (which uBo can also do of course) does not work, enable javascript with Medium Mode (blocks 3th party scripts and frames.)
In uBlock Origin, I allow everything except 3rd party frames, then I use uMatrix to whitelist acceptable domains and requests. These are the only privacy add-ons I use and they are amazing.
Any solutions for eBay? The super hostile "eBay Live" videos intertwined everywhere on the main page are awful.
Either it's bad AI coverart (bonus points for 'glamming it up' with a 'sexy lady' as your stream photo to lure desperate men in), or it loads into a stream with some random middle-aged chud trying to hawk bad baseball cards for "$2 starts!" as you're trying to scroll through the listings.
Last time I tried to manually block some autoplay video with ublock I ended up with invisible video, that still started to play sound, sometime after page loaded. Maintaining filter lists is thankless job, at least looking at ublock github issues tab, where people complain about broken filters few minutes after target page made some changes.
Is there a script or filter to block autoplay on YT? I think I've tried everything, and there is nothing that does it reliably. It's quite infuriating.
I wish there was a setting to make audio and video opt in per site. Most random sites have no business using anything but text and the occasional image plus whatever fancy stylesheets keep their designers busy.
Every decent web browser must implement controls to disable download and autoplay of any media, be it video, audio or even gif images. And very neat feature would be to inform user how much bandwidth this media file will consume before clicking play button. And using scrollbar should not be considered as an interaction with website that enables autoplay.
ltbarcly3 | 10 hours ago
dabber21 | 9 hours ago
NietTim | 9 hours ago
rstat1 | 8 hours ago
forgotpwd16 | 7 hours ago
ghtjason | 10 hours ago
Tarsul | 8 hours ago
close04 | 8 hours ago
neRok | 6 hours ago
KellyCriterion | 8 hours ago
nsoam | 8 hours ago
falsemyrmidon | 6 hours ago
KellyCriterion | 2 hours ago
Aardwolf | 6 hours ago
lakeviewterrace | 9 hours ago
The solution is to stop visiting these sites entirely, as traffic emboldens them further.
It's like deliberately going into The Worst Toilet In Scotland so you can read the news scribbled on the walls.
timesupaders | 9 hours ago
arijun | 9 hours ago
0points | 8 hours ago
arijun | 8 hours ago
I see you’re saying that it obviates the needs for manual central curation. But surely we would move to (stronger) LLMs doing the curation centrally while using existing infrastructure, before trying to insert a LLM round-trip before every page fetch.
Gareth321 | 7 hours ago
Centralised curation will have its time but marketers will move to systems which are unique to each visitor. Think 30 second ads which are unique to each visitor, built on their shopping history, social media comments, search, etc. These systems are currently prohibitively expensive to build and deploy, but they won't be with cheap LLMs. YouTube is already experimenting with ads inside streams, for example. Those are very difficult or impossible to deterministically block. Sites will get very good at agentically evading deterministic adblocking software. This is where local LLMs will shine. Consider the case of YouTube in-steam ads. The LLM could probabilistically determine that the current frames are ads (even though this particular ad is 100% unique to that visitor, and has never appeared in any ad database before), then black out the section of the screen/audio while it plays. Or fast forward until it finds where the segment ends. All in real-time, locally determined.
It does become a strange cat and mouse game in the future, but I feel quite strongly that ad blocking will win. Users will have intelligent, autonomous systems on their devices which can curate and block content as desired.
sandworm101 | 5 hours ago
It burns through tokens/electricity.
In all seriousness, far too many people think "throw AI at it" will solve every tech problem. AI remains inefficient, power hungry and mercurial. Replacing an adblocker or firewall with a constantly-running AI is as efficient and useful as rocket motors on a car.
bulbar | 6 hours ago
Why would that be is own browser instead of a plugin? And his will it accumulate significant market share?
It's possible we will see an "AI first" browser (whatever this means) that gets significant market share. But getting rid of ads will not be a driver for that.
NietTim | 9 hours ago
not_a_bot_4sho | 2 hours ago
HelloUsername | 9 hours ago
cloudflare.com
connatix.com
d34azmi6bxg5fz.cloudfront.net
videos-cloudfront-usp.jwpsrv.com
facebook.net
google.com
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gstatic.com
jwpcdn.com
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jwplayer-dualstack.map.fastly.net
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thetallgeek | 9 hours ago
KellyCriterion | 8 hours ago
Krasnol | 8 hours ago
The internet has been unbearable without it for years now. I can't imagine having to face it every day as most people do.
Jakob | 9 hours ago
On iOS, Brave browser makes toggling JS particularly easy.
90% of my mobile web browsing is without JavaScript. It’s much faster, cleaner, safer. And for the occasional website that needs JS, I can toggle it.
Similar to many here in the thread, I then tend to not visit sites anymore that require JS/are too bloated.
0x0203 | 7 hours ago
The modern web is getting worse by the day. Not coincidentally, I find myself using it less and less.
chneu | 3 hours ago
Yup. Its getting to the point where folks send me links and I just reply "I don't or can't use that website" and I move on. Nothing is lost, I feel.
DavideNL | 19 minutes ago
So, when blocking javascript (which uBo can also do of course) does not work, enable javascript with Medium Mode (blocks 3th party scripts and frames.)
(personally i use Librewolf.)
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode#medium-...
bborrez | 9 hours ago
kotaKat | 7 hours ago
Either it's bad AI coverart (bonus points for 'glamming it up' with a 'sexy lady' as your stream photo to lure desperate men in), or it loads into a stream with some random middle-aged chud trying to hawk bad baseball cards for "$2 starts!" as you're trying to scroll through the listings.
Good4boothee | 7 hours ago
VCFundedGenYer | 6 hours ago
And if that doesn't work, use reader view (as you always should)
drcongo | 5 hours ago
baal80spam | 5 hours ago
account42 | 2 hours ago
butz | 2 hours ago