Ask Slashdot: Gaining Control of My Mobile Browser?

An anonymous reader writes: I run Firefox with NoScript and FlashBlock at home. Browsing is easy, and I only have to enable scripts on a few sites. If they have 20+ scripts, I just surf somewhere else. Fast forward to the mobile experience. I had an Android device, but now I have an iPhone. In addition to the popup problem, and the fake "X" on ads, the iPhone browsers (Safari, Chrome, Opera) will start to show a site, then they will lock up for 10-30 seconds before finally becoming responsive. If I switch back to another app and then return to the browser, Safari and Chrome have a little delay, but Opera delays 20+ seconds before becoming responsive again.

Firefox is not available on the iPhone, so I can't simply run NoScript. Chrome does not appear to have a NoScript equivalent for mobile. What solutions are you using to make mobile browsing work?

Comments

It is, sorta

[nospam007]

"Firefox is not available on the iPhone"
There's an app called virtualBrowser, which runs firefox, but you'll better have LTE.
You can try it out for free, but if you want to save installed extensions like noscript and adblock, you'll have to pay a monthly fee, 2 bucks if I remember.

There are also standalone adblocker apps. (weblock etc) I pasted my custom filters copied from adblock into mine and it works OK.

Why not just enjoy the experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of dealing with malware in the Play store, you get to deal with no freedom in the App store. You knew the sword cut both ways when you switched, and now you're complaining?

Re: Why not just enjoy the experience

[corychristison]

If you want to talk about freedom, why are you letting your employer hold your phone over your head like a bully teasing a child?

Go buy your own phone if you want control over it. Otherwise, don't complain.

Re: Why not just enjoy the experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all switches are "willingly".
I had the choice of free iPhone with support by my employer, or pay for phone and no support if I wanted android.

Easy answer throw the iPhone junk in the nearest waste bin tell your employer to supply proper phones not over priced under capable apple crap
   

You're not supposed to ask that

[rrohbeck]

Accept the walled garden. Even if you find a fix now Apple will probably break it with the next release.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[AmiMoJo]

Or just switch back to Android after realizing that you fell for all the FUD about Play store malware and paid 2x as much for an Apple phone as a result, while getting a worse experience. Firefox for Android does what you want.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: But how do I totally block Google? My objection isn't so much with the advertising as with the tracking. I don't want Google to know much of ANYTHING about me and I don't want them to track ANYTHING about me. I imagine I can jail break the phone, but that seems a bit extreme. Give me a good solution to my problem -- which is far bigger than mere advertising, imo -- and I would probably be interested in your solution. Until then (and aware that this may change) I don't see Apple sharing my private info with tracking companies and, so far, Apple's interest in tracking seems to be pretty Apple oriented..and I avoid all that by avoiding itunes .

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[oodaloop]

Root the phone, remove Google apps, use alternative apps. Not terribly hard, and pretty much what I've done to my LG Google Nexus 5, but I choose to use a few Google apps. Why you trust Apple to track you appropriately but not Google would be a better question though.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[Andy Dodd]

Don't log into a Google account?

Pretty damned easy...

Re: You're not supposed to ask that

[vux984]

Except that the play store is loaded with malware.

Its really not "loaded" with malware.

If you are that worried that what you are about to download is malware, check the ios store first, if its there with the same name, same icon, and same publisher, its not going to be "malware".

If its not on ios (and really the only things that aren't going to be there that a normal person would want would be things that ios actively doesn't allow) -- so a handful of technical utilities, arcade emulators, 3rd party browsers, etc. So do a smattering of research on the developer/publisher for those items to make sure your getting the right ones.

Or just get that stuff from F-droid.

(seperate advertising is malware).

Sure and if we get to define malware the way we like then I could say "Walled gardens that don't allow side loading of apps is malware" and write off the entire ios platform as malware.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[Em Adespoton]

On iOS you've got a few alternatives.
1) Set up a VPN, and run that VPN through privoxy to strip the junk.
2) Jailbreak and install Adblocker 2, Firewall iP, PrivaCy and if you want, Tor.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[emj]

you're going to have a VERY hard time avoiding Google completely.

Not really. If it's something that is important to you it can be done in 2 days without expert knowledge. You are not going to get everything that Google has, but enough to be useable.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[Parafilmus]

Serious question: But how do I totally block Google?

Using Apple devices is a pretty good solution for that. Another option is Cyanogenmod.

It's an open-source Android fork with better privacy: http://cyanogenmod.org/

Installing it is usually simple, but can be difficult or impossible on certain phones. If you're after a turnkey solution, your best bet is the OnePlus One, which ships with Cyanogen preinstalled. List price is $299, but they're going for about $400 on amazon right now, due to limited availability.

Re: You're not supposed to ask that

[BellyJelly]

You don't need to buy a phone without google's crap on it. You buy an unlocked phone that is well supported on omnirom or cyanogenmod then you walk through the install instructions that are so simple a child could follow them. You don't install gapps, and then you install the f-droid store where you find firefox, k9mail, vlc and various other cool apps. Anything you need that's not on f-droid you sideload. That's what I did on my work-issued galaxy s4. I now have an ultra fast and responsive phone with great battery life. Oh, and startpage as your default search engine...... If you can't be bothered to do all that, then just suck on whatever apple or google feed you.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[josquin9]

Given a choice between trusting my data to a hipster company motivated by profit, but convinced that it is a still a trendsetter, and a company whose entire business model is based on the collection and distribution of information that it collects by looking over people's shoulders, I actaually feel safer with the deluded hipsters. Even if they are no more trustworthy, their reach is not as great, so I'm willing to bet the fallout will be (marginally) easier to contain.

On some level, to Apple, I'm a customer. To Google, I'm just a product.

Re:You're not supposed to ask that

[david_thornley]

Follow the money.

Apple makes the bulk of its money from people like me. When I buy an iPhone, Apple makes money. When I buy an album from the iTunes store, or an app from the App Store, Apple gets a cut (and, if it's more expensive than the minimum, more than was necessary to cover the credit card transaction). The money that Apple gets from ad services is much smaller.

I give money to Apple. I'm a customer.

Google makes almost all of its money from advertising. Except when I bought a Nexus 7, I don't think I ever paid money to them directly. Google makes money by learning as much about me as possible to give me advertising for stuff I'm likely to buy,.

I give no money to Google. I'm not a customer. Google makes money from the people who give it money by displaying their ads to me. I'm a product.

This means that Apple has a vested financial interest in keeping me reasonably happy and not screwing me over. Google does not in the same way: if I find their data collection unacceptable, I'm of no use as a product, so there's no point in making me happier about that.

Easy solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy an Android phone (or Jolla), run Firefox, be happy.

If you buy closed junk, you get closed junk, deal with it.

Ditch iPhone

[Carewolf]

Read subject. You can not get an alternative browser on iPhones, it is not allowed, all the "alternative" browsers on iPhones are just reskinned Safari because Apple does not allow alternative browsers. So if you are wondering how to get control over you phone again: Ditch iPhone!

Re:Ditch iPhone

[TheGratefulNet]

perhaps a proxy (outside the phone) would help? yes, its another box and its not going to work for cell data; you'd have to wifi thru that proxy box and that would connect to cellular or some other net connection.

I would like to know how apple people deal with the 'locked browser' stuff and if anyone has figured out a way to get the same level of adblocking as, say, a rooted android with the right apps installed.

(almost funny to think about it: but a cheap old used android that is rooted could be the REAL cellular-to-wifi gateway, it can proxy and block ads and then your phone would only run wifi, at least for browsing. yes, you'd carry 2 phones but you'd USE the iphone and the other android phone would just be in your pocket, hidden).

the 'raw internet' is unusable (for me) unless there are good blockers, so if there is really no good way to do this natively on an iphone, I guess any hopes I had of someday buying an iphone will have disappeared. I refuse to be FORCED into the raw internet. its not worth using if that's the case.

Re:Ditch iPhone

[halivar]

GP means all browsers on iOS use WebKit, which is correct; even Chrome for iOS does. That being said, there are a number of WebKit-based browsers for iOS that block ads and popups.

Re:Ditch iPhone

[halivar]

You can not get an alternative browser on iPhones, it is not allowed,

Yes, you can.

all the "alternative" browsers on iPhones are just reskinned Safari because Apple does not allow alternative browsers

All iOS browsers use WebKit. That's completely orthogonal to the original question: are there iOS browsers that block ads and pop-ups? The answer is yes, there are.

Re:Ditch iPhone

[mlts]

That is one idea. There is also getting a virtual machine and running one's own VPN with ad blocking functionality (transparant proxy.) The downside of this is that it can get slow if the VPN server is a number of hops away.

If jailbreaking is an option, that is another route. There are adblockers on the Cydia store which are useful, as well as utilities like PMP (Protect My Privacy.) Without jailbreaking, a lot of sites you will go to will let you view the site for 15 seconds... then kick you to the App Store to download some app the advertiser is trying to foist on you, or redirect to a page that is pointless.

Android (especially rooted, XPrivacy installed, a decent host file in place, IP block rules, and adblocking tools installed) is pretty decent. So far the worst I've seen are sites trying to get you to download a "securityupdate.apk" file, assuming the user is dump enough to sideload it.

I'm with the parent -- an adblocking program is a must have. Adblocking utilities do more for malware stopping in my experience than AV programs.

Re:Ditch iPhone

[CaptBubba]

Mercury and Atomic Browser are the two big ones, both of which have integrated ad-blocking which is quite effective.

Re:Ditch iPhone

[halivar]

The word "orthogonal" grew out of its strictly geometric definition 500 years ago. Get with the times, learn the language.

Don't even bother asking

[halivar]

All you'll get on Slashdot is "neener-neener" posts from Android fan boys telling you you deserve it for buy the Phone That Shall Not Be Named. What you should have done was ask Google, and it would have taken you to a number of browsers available for iOS that block banner ads. Question answered, no psychopathic schadenfreude.

Re:Don't even bother asking

[halivar]

In an attempt to actually answer the question, try the Mercury browser. Basically Safari + AdBlock. The others are usually crapware/adware. https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...

Re:Don't even bother asking

[halivar]

He's not asking for a non-WebKit browser. He's asking for a browser that blocks ads and pop-ups, of which there are many for iOS. And yes, they all use WebKit. That has nothing to do with the question asked.

Partial answer using hosts.txt

[Anonymous Coward]

Run DD-WRT on router, put hosts.txt on USB drive, add this script to "firewall" commands:

#!/bin/sh

if test -s /tmp/mnt/sda1/hosts.txt
then
        cat /tmp/mnt/sda1/hosts.txt |
        sed 's/[[:space:]]*#.*$//g;' |
        grep -v localhost | tr ' ' '\t' |
        tr -s '\t' | tr -d '\015' | sort -u >/tmp/hosts0
        grep addn-hosts /tmp/dnsmasq.conf ||
        echo "addn-hosts=/tmp/hosts0" >>/tmp/dnsmasq.conf
        killall dnsmasq
        dnsmasq -u root -g root --conf-file=/tmp/dnsmasq.conf
fi

This blocks almost all ads in mobile Safari, but only works at home of course. The hosts.txt can be updated by sharing the USB or ssh to router, then reboot. This script is a bit different from the one on dd-wrt site that downloads hosts.txt on boot, but that script doesn't actually work.

There is no hope.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Mobile" is basically a trailer for the cryptographically sealed dystopia after the demise of the general purpose computer. Your options are basically 'consume that content, just the way its creator intended you to' or 'walk away'.

Android is slightly better, in that (while it is peddled by a massive surveillance-and-advertising vendor) it is fairly easy to buy a handset that will accept substantial modification without the blessing of the creator. iOS starts from an incrementally less user-hostile place; but Apple's dedication to lockdown is very, very, thorough and relatively competent. Short of using the phone as a VNC/RDP/ICA client and connecting to a real computer, you are mostly SOL.

Atomic Browser

[aaarrrgggh]

I use Atomic Browser for ad-heavy sites. It has some nice features and could do several things Safari couldn't. You can also download pages if you are going to fly or want a ready reference.

Re:Atomic Browser

[cve]

It's the best option I've used. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in over 2 years and cookies seem to be getting through now with iOS8.

iPhone AND user control?

[briancox2]

The concepts of an iPhone and user freedom/control are mutually exclusive.

Mercury and Atomic Browser

[RandCraw]

Both browsers are cheap and will block most ads. I've used Atomic for the past several years as my primary browser on my iPhone 4 and 5s, iPad 3, and iPad Mini retina, and it has worked very well on all. The browser is very configurable and makes much better use of small real estate than Safari. It's very rare that Atomic has let me down or that I have to fall back to using Safari or Chrome (maybe twice a year?).

I've used Mercury less than Atomic, but only because Atomic has worked well. The little I have used Mercury, I've had no complaints.

Alas there's precious little company support or user community for Atomic. If Mercury turns out to be better for this, I might be willing to switch.

Wow! Many stupid! Wow!

[cerberusss]

The amount of misinformation in this topic is staggering.

There's enough cool stuff in the App Store that take a lot of the hurt away. I'm using iCab Mobile, an alternative to Safari that has many options, ad blocking one amongst them.

As for the comments that all browsers are just reskinned versions of an older Safari version, as far as I know the new WKWebView component makes it possible for alternative browsers to have equal speed compared to Safari.