• Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Since January 2018, 42% of malicious extensions use the Web Request API.

    That’s like making knifes illegal in general because they have been used in a certain amount of murder cases.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Indeed. What a f-ing stupid argument: “We cannot trust the extensions that the user installed, therefor we give malware from advertisers free roam!”

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Run a pihole or similar

    Your web browser is just one piece of software on your network capable of displaying ads and collecting data

    • uzay@infosec.pub
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      5 months ago

      Network-level adblock cannot replace browser-level adblock and vice versa

    • xyz1195@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I’m a bit clueless when it comes to that but certainly interested. Could you maybe go into more detail as to which hardware and software is needed to set that up?

      Thanks much in advance!

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        So the main software is here https://pi-hole.net/ (and they have good documentation, so I’m not going to repeat the nitty-gritty here)

        You obviously need something to run it on, which could be some existing computer that’s always on, but (as the name might suggest) a lot of people use some form of Raspberry Pi (or similar) single-board computer.

        Pihole will run on basically anything, so you can get an ancient pi and it will still run fine

    • MentorKitten@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I thought this requires permission to a router. Can you do this say at a dorm or an apartment where internet is provided for you through a portal

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You can always configure the DNS manually on a device you own to ignore the DHCP settings sent from the router and just go directly to the pihole, obviously not as good as it happening automatically, but a good workaround if that’s not possible

    • erwan@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Use Firefox if you want but don’t donate to Mozilla. Money doesn’t go to Firefox development anyway.

      Also if they can afford to pay their CEO $3 millions a year, they don’t need your donations.

    • 001Guy001@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Just adding that as I understand this, donations to the Mozilla Foundation cannot go towards Firefox, because it’s [edit: Firefox is] actually part of the Mozilla Corporation. To help with funding Firefox people can consider purchasing the Corporation’s other products (VPN/Relay/Monitor), or purchasing merch.

      See more here on the AMA on Reddit, and this thread

        • 001Guy001@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Sorry, it was unclear in my comment. By “it’s actually part of the Mozilla Corporation” I was referring to Firefox, not Mozilla Foundation

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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    5 months ago

    uBlock Origin for Chrome has over 34 million installations according to the Chrome Web Store

    Oh wow, that is very surprising to me. I somehow expected a billion of installations. Especially when I saw the screenshots without it in the article, how can anyone browse the web without it?

    • corbin@infosec.pubOP
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      5 months ago

      Adblock users are still a statistical minority of web users. Most people don’t care (as evidenced by Netflix’s ad tier gaining subscribers every quarter) or don’t know those extensions exist.

    • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      There are other ad block options. And there is Firefox. I use Vivaldi browser, it has a built-in ad blocker, just like many other browsers. I just wish Vivaldi would be Firefox based.

      • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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        5 months ago

        But Firefox has a installation base of 2.8% and Chrome 65%. The Firefox uBlock Origin installations are in my opinion statistically insignificant, so are Brave browser installations which are even lower.

    • Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      They only have 40 posts so I gave them a follow. It’s when accounts have like 10k posts and an account is less than a year old that I won’t follow them, I don’t need that noise.

    • corbin@infosec.pubOP
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      5 months ago

      What specifically is “google propaganda and fear mongering” in the article?

      • kbin_space_program@kbin.run
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        5 months ago

        Mentions UBlock seems.to be fast and safe, but that the API used lets extensions look at everything you do amd can dramatically affect browser speed. Implying that UBlock Origin is responsible for Chrome being such a memory Hog and that they, not Google, are the ones after your data.

        • Deebster@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          That performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization […], but there were probably other extensions not doing that well.

          The article goes out of its way to not do what you’re accusing it of. I don’t understand how you’ve managed to read the article as having the opposite slant as what it actually does.

        • corbin@infosec.pubOP
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          5 months ago

          Except the part where it didn’t imply that at all?

          That performance cost seems to be negligible in uBlock Origin and other popular ad blockers that have focused on optimization (uBO has an explainer wiki page), but there were probably other extensions not doing that well. It’s not hard to see a situation where multiple poorly-optimized extensions installed using the Web Request API could dramatically slow down Chrome, and the user would have no way of knowing the issue.

      • far_university1990@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        I don’t think that’s necessarily the case: Google knows as well as I do that a total crackdown would give governments like the European Union and United States more ammo for antitrust lawsuits.

        They do not care, never have, never will. Cost of operation.

        It would also be a motivator for more people to switch browsers, which would weaken Google’s browser monopoly.

        Not enough even care that would make noticable difference in market share.

        A lot of people were upset 23 years ago when Windows ME removed real mode DOS, too.

        And they all stopped using it, right? Right?

        The new Declarative Net Request API is still a downgrade in capability compared to the older API, but the feature gap has closed significantly.

        Chrome now allows extensions to include 100 rule lists, with up to 50 lists active at once. There are also additional filtering options, including an option to have case-insensitive rules, which cuts down on duplicates in filter lists. The maximum number of filter rules now varies by use case — an extension can now have up to 30,000 dynamic rules (filters downloaded by the extension) if they are deemed as “safe” (block, allow, allowAllRequests or upgradeScheme), an additional 5,000 other types of dynamic requests, and more filters included in the extension package.

        for context, EasyList is just one of the lists enabled by default in uBlock Origin and other ad blockers, and it has over 75,000 rules.

        Can you math? Feature gap almost same as before.

        • corbin@infosec.pubOP
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          5 months ago

          That’s up to 30K dynamic rules, at least 30K static rules, and at least 1K regex rules: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/api/declarativeNetRequest#property-GUARANTEED_MINIMUM_STATIC_RULES

          That seems like it’s fine for general use, and those limits might go up again. EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format, and there’s probably some dead rules in there. uBlock Origin on Firefox will definitely be more versatile moving forward, but every time I’ve used uBlock Origin Lite in Chrome it’s almost the same experience.

          • far_university1990@feddit.de
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            5 months ago

            Why even make limit at all? Should not have any.

            EasyList and the other big lists can be consolidated to varying degrees with Chrome’s rules format

            Source? Or you just assume they can? What about specific list? List by small maintainer?

            Not convinced feature gap any better yet just by slightly higher number and not said real number and vague „can compress list“.

            Also, until Hill say satisfied with api or proven it enough to fight google head on in adblock war, not think good enough.