Adblock Plus Launches Adblock Browser: a Fork of Firefox For Android

An anonymous reader writes: Adblock Plus has launched Adblock Browser for Android. Currently in beta, the company's first browser was created by taking the open source Firefox for Android and including Adblock Plus out-of-the-box. The Firefox Sync functionality is disabled, as is the ability to use other addons. "Adblock Plus for Android got kicked out of Google Play along with other ad blocking apps in March 2013, because Google’s developer distribution agreement states apps cannot interfere with the functionality of other apps. Williams thus believes Adblock Browser “should be fine” as it only blocks ads that are shown as you browse the Web."

Comments

pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointless. Firefox for Android with ABP extension installed....is that not the same, but better?

Re:pointless

[niceworkthere]

Adblock Plus devs might as well be afraid that people opt for the better blockers, like Adblock Edge and particularly Block.

Awesome!!

[EzInKy]

Bandwidth sucking and privacy really needs to be addressed by these phone platforms. The default for anything "app" that requests data should be no and strict warnings provided before any user is shown the "I accept" button.

Auto-play video ads

[ArcadeMan]

Anyone know how to completely block auto-playing videos on Safari? And by completely, I mean prevent them from loading the video file at all. Those stupid things, that I'm never going to watch (fuck you, advertisers), are eating into my monthly cap.

Re:Auto-play video ads

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Linux, so my initial response is to suggest using /etc/hosts. However, apparently macs put their /etc/hosts file in /private/etc/hosts. Just search for "how to edit /etc/hosts on mac"; that's how I found out the location. Anyway, just add entries like:

127.0.0.1 ads.somesite.com
127.0.0.1 videos.some-affiliate.org

This works by lying to your computer about the DNS records for those websites. Any time a program tries to access one of those sites, the DNS lookup will come back as your local PC. If you don't have a web server, it won't show anything. Or if you install your own web server on your PC, you could have it set up to show funny videos of your cat instead of advertisements.

p.s. Another option is to add firewall rules to block specific domains.

Re:Auto-play video ads

[CauseBy]

I'll say gently, maybe consider a different browser if you can't block what you don't like in the one you use.

Re:Auto-play video ads

[ne0n]

apt-get remove --purge safari

Should do the trick. I can guarantee no autoplaying video adverts and other nuisances if you don't have the root problem installed.

Re:functionality blocking blocked?

[ArcadeMan]

I tried to read your comment three times. My head hurts. It reminds me of this xkcd.

Firefox on Android + uBlock is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install the standard Firefox on Android and load the uBlock add-on. It works brilliantly.

I used to be a devout Opera on Android user. While I miss some of the little touches (no pun intended) of Opera, I'm a Firefox convert.

The only thing I use Chrome for now is that abomination that is Amazon Instant Videos.

Re:Resource Hog?

[robmv]

I use Firefox for Android on a daily basis and on a modern phone it runs fine, better that Chrome IMHO. Tried to use Adblock for a few days and it was insufferable. They will need to implement a better way to interact with Firefox code so it doesn't becomes a resource hog with thousands of regular expressions on memory. If they will ship the same extension, I don't see any advantage.

Re:Until...

[lister king of smeg]

Adblock Plus for Android got kicked out of Google Play along with other ad blocking apps in March 2013, because Google’s developer distribution agreement states apps cannot interfere with the functionality of other apps

How is AdBlock interfering with the functionality of other apps? That makes no sense. Are people running apps whose function is to display ads?

But, this is not surprising, since 98% of Google's revenue depends on advertising being as intrusive as possible,

Yes that is the sole reason for almost any ad supported app. Whatever other functionality they have is simply the bait used to get you to view their ads. You are the product sold to the ad networks by the app developer and then resold to the whomever is placing the ad.

Re:Resource Hog?

[Skuto]

The ironic thing is that there's a much better AdBlocking plugin for Firefox for Android: uBlock. It's much lighter on resources than AdBlock. You're better off installing the real Firefox and uBlock than this thing.

Re:Resource Hog?

[suutar]

oh, never mind, I see what you mean. Not through the play store, through firefox's plugin browser.

Re:Until...

[OhPlz]

It's so true. I don't even bother trying a lot of apps because it's just more advertising. They're just hurting themselves. Google's own "news and weather" app is a great example. A good percentage of the sites they link to for news articles are not usable due to invasive ads.

Re:Resource Hog?

[CrashNBrn]

uBlock Origin is the original uBlock by gorhill - which was forked from HTTPSwitchboard. Gorhill gave uBlock ownership of uBlock to another team (see uBlock FAQ) , but still maintains his "personal" version... which has over a million users -- compared to the supposed official version uBlock - which has less than 80,000 users.

Interestingly enough, uMatrix - also by Gorhill is now available on Firefox, as well as Opera and Chrome.

Oddly enough, uBlock for FireFox doesn't appear to be related to Gorhill nor to the official uBlock team.

Error in summary

[MSG]

The Firefox Sync functionality is disabled, as is the ability to use other addons

The article says that they added support for other add-ons (exactly how is unclear), not that they disabled them.