Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS

401

HHieronymusBosch about 17 hours ago 134 commentsRead Article on blog.mozilla.org

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Discussion (134 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

OptionOfT•about 13 hours ago

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-ads-firefox-ios#w...

> Does ad blocking affect search engine ads? > No. Ads shown on search engine results pages are not blocked.

A lot of the search results on top of Google are there to scam you, providing phone numbers for pass through services that charge $ for it, like flight cancellation:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1p6h81i/beware_fake_...

So this omission should absolutely be addressed, but they probably cannot because of the Google Search contract...

qingcharles•about 8 hours ago

A neighbor came to ask for help today. He got locked out of his Facebook account and was getting impatient with their AI, so he Googled "facebook support number" clicked on the first link (almost certainly an ad) and called the number. The person on the other end apparently told him they needed access to his bank accounts to verify his identity and you know the rest of the story.

cryptonym•8 minutes ago

How is Alphabet not responsible this? They push ads for scams at the top and earn money from it. That should be 100% on them to reimburse, then go after the scammers.

qwerpy•about 13 hours ago

Also they say they will continue to show Firefox’s sponsored links and ads. So, they’ll continue to show first party ads and google’s ads? And likely they won’t be able to keep up with meta’s anti ad blocking. That’s most ads on the internet. No thanks, I’ll stick to ublock origin lite on safari.

thesuitonym•about 11 hours ago

There's no reason to block Firefox's sponsored links because you can just turn those off if you don't want to see them.

cpeterso•about 13 hours ago

Firefox on iOS is blocking third-party ads, not first-party ads.

OptionOfT•about 11 hours ago

Through network blocking? Or removing elements?

TingPing•about 2 hours ago

Standard webkit content blocking, so it will filter requests and hide elements.

dest•about 13 hours ago

If only we could pay for Firefox so they could get rid of that Google funding…

tgv•35 minutes ago

Yeah, if everyone gave $10, that would get them at least $50.

illiac786•27 minutes ago

LOL

(and I love ff)

metalliqaz•about 13 hours ago

has any browser ever made that work? Opera has to be the most popular by a mile and even they couldn't keep that business model going

dest•about 11 hours ago

Not in my knowledge. It would be hard to have the same amount of funding as they have now from Google.

yubblegum•about 8 hours ago

What exactly is the problem? I understand a browser is a complex program but is the claim it is impossible to build a browser without continual dependence on advertising toxic dollars?

al_borland•about 9 hours ago

Orion (by Kagi) is still new, but seems to be trying.

johanyc•about 11 hours ago

People just expect browsers to be free. And there's no way that can be more than Google money.

NoMoreNicksLeft•about 8 hours ago

If only we could open source it and load it onto the phone with Sideloadly.

nottorp•about 9 hours ago

... if only their donation links would let you specify your donation goes to Firefox development and no other mozilla service ...

WD-42•about 16 hours ago

It's been days (weeks?) and I'm still waiting for the option to appear for me. These "experiments" are super annoying when you are on what I'm assuming is the long tail of a rollout but the marketing/blog posts speak of the feature like it's already launched.

If there's someone at Mozilla reading this: turn it on already! I want to get off Orion, it's so buggy, but the internet is unusable without an ad blocker.

embedding-shape•about 16 hours ago

> but the marketing/blog posts speak of the feature like it's already launched.

Yeah, seemingly tons of companies do this in a very weird way. Either make the switch 100% once you publish the press release, or wait until you reach 100% then publish. Starting the experiment with gradual rollout and then making the press release immediately seems like asking for potential problems and confusion among users.

Wowfunhappy•about 11 hours ago

But consider what the alternative looks like: People randomly see unexpected options in their apps, go to look for information about them, and don't find anything, or find some random Reddit discussion where no one is sure what's going on.

temp0826•about 15 hours ago

I was under the impression that firefox could already use the Safari "content blockers" (as it uses webkit) like Firefox Focus and uBO Lite, but I'm not seeing that option actually. Been using Orion for a while now so not sure if that changed or I'm just misremembering it.

dogmatism•about 6 hours ago

You are correct. I’ve been using firefox focus as Safari content blocker to block ads on ios Firefox for years. Works well

doublepg23•about 16 hours ago

Safari + the Content Blocker Wipr works well for me.

Melatonic•about 15 hours ago

Is it that buggy ? Orion works pretty well for me. Where you have you ran into bugs ?

nxc18•about 15 hours ago

Randomly the new tab page stops working. And when the new tab page stops working, all browsing activity stops working until I restart the app. I think the pages load, but I can’t actually see them because it is hidden by the new tab page.

Also sometimes tabs disappear from the tab picker, which makes tab management confusing.

WD-42•about 15 hours ago

The address bar likes to randomly move off the side of the screen and I have to force restart the app to get it back.

brynjolf•about 5 hours ago

It doesn’t even remember what tabs are open so you can’t reopen them if you close them by accident. Orion is a disaster of an app.

KORraN•about 11 hours ago

Even worse, two weeks back when the first news appeared (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49319633), I had access to the ad blocker for about a week (and turned it on), but after a few days the option disappeared...

urbnspacecowboy•about 10 hours ago

Obvious follow-ups: How does the A/B test choose between A and B, and how can it be manipulated into choosing A instead of B (or vice versa)? It's software, it has to be deterministic at some level.

bookofjoe•about 8 hours ago

"...the internet is unusable without an ad blocker." — for some but not most.

c0_0p_•about 3 hours ago

As others have mentioned it doesn't stop YouTube ads or search ads. Most likely because Mozilla is still quite dependent on Google for it's income.

Which is why I think we need to be less critical everytime Mozilla tries to make money some other way. They need to become more self sufficient in order to improve Firefox.

DavideNL•37 minutes ago

Aren't they like 10+ years late with this? So after all this time, Mozilla comes with a minimal ad-blocker that hardly blocks anything (easylist only, and worse [1] ), compared to all other ad-blockers that have been available on iOS for many years.

I don't understand, maybe i'm missing something...

[1] "Ad Blocker won’t block every ad. Ads served directly by the site you’re visiting and ads shown in search results will still appear."

NikxDa•about 16 hours ago

I was going to give credit to the direction Mozilla was taking here after their... questionable decisions in the past few year(s).

Only to see that this is neither generally available, nor can you use it without enabling telemetry. I don't know who makes these decisions inside Mozilla, but I just don't get it.

mossTechnician•about 15 hours ago

I think you can use it without enabling telemetry, due to a recent change:

> Previously, access to these changes required you to share technical and interraction data (telemetry) with Mozilla. However, as of Firefox version 148, you can opt into receiving remote improvements, even if you have opted out of sharing your telemetry or participating in our experimental studies.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remote-improvements

embedding-shape•about 15 hours ago

> access to these changes required you to share technical and interraction data (telemetry) with Mozilla

How did that even happen? I sure hope that was a bug and not a product decision, because that sounds very backwards.

nemomarx•about 15 hours ago

I think for their labs / beta features they just require it to get testing data

delis-thumbs-7e•about 12 hours ago

Finally. I turned it on immediatedly. Doesn’t seem to block youtube-ads, so unfortunately I can’t uninstall Brave just yet.

delis-thumbs-7e•about 12 hours ago

I tested and adblockers work on Safari for youtube ads again? Hmm, should I just give in and start using Safari again. Maybe this time it won’t dissappiunt me… Maybe it’s different this time…

gilrain•about 4 hours ago

Or search engine ads, natch. My eyes rolled out of my head.

Barbing•about 15 hours ago

Better title suggestions?

  Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS [Non-GA]

?

overflowy•about 16 hours ago

FYI: Doesn't block YouTube ads.

quaintdev•about 16 hours ago

Google will stop paying them if they tried that.

lern_too_spel•about 2 hours ago

Firefox with uBlock Origin has blocked YouTube ads just fine on Android for years, and Google kept paying. uBlock Origin doesn't actually get installed by default on Firefox Mobile, but I'd wager that it effectively does.

nkozyra•about 15 hours ago

A weird line to draw since Google still owns the general ad web space.

doikor•about 15 hours ago

It doesn’t cost cost google money to show that content. (It does cost someone else who google would be giving a cut of the ad revenue)

YouTube videos actually have some real world disk space, bandwidth, etc costs just to show so if google doesn’t get to show an ad they lose money instead of an opportunity to make money.

LeoPanthera•about 15 hours ago

I'm regularly surprised that people are willing to block YouTube ads. I know that Google gets that advertising money too, but you're also blocking revenue that the channel owner would otherwise get. I suppose it might depend what you're watching, but most YouTubers aren't big business, they're just individuals.

YouTube Premium is one of the few subscriptions I am completely happy to pay.

barbazoo•about 15 hours ago

It doesn't have to go through Google. Lots of us support the people they follow through patreon et al, I don't need to make the gigacorp even richer than it is. They have enough.

bitpush•about 13 hours ago

Why do these creators use YouTube then? Why cant they host it on s3 and the have you directly compensate? Surely the creator is getting some value from YouTube and YT expects to be compensated for that?

seanyeh•about 14 hours ago

Many people are not aware that for smaller creators, Google forces ads on their videos (without consent) and takes all the revenue

izacus•3 minutes ago

You mean they pay for the video storage, video streaming bandwidth, transcode CPU and serving the videos with ads on their content.

bitpush•about 7 hours ago

Isnt that part of the deal of uploading to YouTube? YouTube promises distribution and in return they show ads to make up for lost {storage,bandwidth} etc.

I'm surprised that YouTube doesnt ask $100 per year and then also show ads. Like App Store (which requires "developer fee" for doing far less)

DarmokTanagra•about 15 hours ago

when they stop placing ads arbitrarily in the middle of a sentence or scene Ill stop blocking them

prmoustache•about 3 hours ago

I guess they just chose the wrong business model if it doesn't work out for them.

hn_submit•about 15 hours ago

Without ad blocking YouTube is simply unwatchable / unbearable.

ncr100•about 15 hours ago

Youtube decides the thresholds, the payouts, the promotional algorithms.

izzydata•about 15 hours ago

I inherently disagree with the ad model of business. Intentionally worsening a product with ads to convince people to pay to remove them is just rewarding them for enshitification.

So on that front I'd prefer YouTube go out of business so that something like Nebula can take its place. Or the only videos left at\re the ones doing it as a hobby and not as a job.

peri-cl•about 15 hours ago

> "ads shown in search results will still appear"

Is that for a technical reason or a commercial one?

yapyap•about 15 hours ago

commercial

garrettjoecox•about 16 hours ago

Any reason to use this over uBlock Origin Lite?

Shank•about 11 hours ago

No, uBOL blocks more ads and isn’t affected by Firefox’s insistence to not block Google Ads or their own.

> Sponsored shortcuts and other sponsored content shown by Firefox when you open a new tab are separate from ads on the web pages you visit, so Ad Blocker doesn’t affect them.

temp0826•about 15 hours ago

Just mentioned in another comment, but I'm not sure Firefox on iOS can actually use webkit content blockers? (I thought it could but have been using Orion exclusively for a while now)

basedpolymer•about 16 hours ago

UBlock Origin Lite on Safari iOS is still king I guess

wredcoll•about 15 hours ago

Is there an android equivalent?

grahamburger•about 6 hours ago

uBlock Origin has been fully supported on Firefox for Android for a long time.

z0mghii•about 2 hours ago

Also supported on edge

MYEUHD•about 15 hours ago

uBlock origin on Fennec F-Droid

busymom0•about 15 hours ago

Thanks to your comment, I just installed it and set it up. Thanks!

rrgok•about 15 hours ago

Does it do cosmetic block of just DNS block?

basedpolymer•about 15 hours ago

The same as on macOS. Comzmeti. And dns block

sapphicsnail•about 10 hours ago

Would someone smarter than me mind explaining why FF on iOS can't use extensions? I know every browser has to use WebKit but I've heard Orion is able to use FF and Chrome extensions.

nntwozz•about 8 hours ago

I was using ublock origin lite but now I've converted to wblock.

Absolutely amazing, works inside webviews (e.g. netnewswire).

v3 just released.

https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlock

stan-ely•about 3 hours ago

Is it already available in android? Without plugin?

dbdr•about 2 hours ago

On android, you can use Firefox with ublock origin plugin. Works great, blocks youtube ads too.

z0mghii•about 2 hours ago

Why would you ever use this over ublock

9999gold•about 11 hours ago

It's a shame that the adblocker is limited, though. I've been using Orion as a replacement for Firefox on iOS, which has support for extensions (including uBlock Origin) and better UI/UX in my opinion, but it is not open source.

eikenberry•about 11 hours ago

It doesn't block the inline ads between story and comments on reddit.. my benchmark for browser ad blocking and ublock-origin is one of the few (only?) that does it. This is why I use the Orion browser on iOS.

GeekyBear•about 14 hours ago

This is the sort of user focused feature you add when you take the phrase "user agent" seriously.

lotsofpulp•about 15 hours ago

How is this different than Firefox Focus content blocker on iOS, which came out many years ago?

crsv•about 8 hours ago

This is my question as well.

what•about 6 hours ago

Why would you use Firefox on iOS when it’s just a wrapper around WebKit? I don’t really get it?

z0mghii•about 2 hours ago

Cross platform sync?

onesandofgrain•about 1 hour ago

this is not genuine

HexDecOctBin•about 15 hours ago

It’s not clear from the post, are they supporting the Content Blocker API? In other words, can I use Adguard with Firefox now on iOS?

cedws•about 16 hours ago

Can it block YouTube ads? Would be a killer feature.

skarz•about 15 hours ago

For that, there's ProTube[1]. On the surface it behaves like YouTube Premium, under the hood it's just the mobile version of YouTube bundled into an iOS app. I have no idea why ads aren't served, I analyzed the network requests with Fiddler Everywhere and saw nothing nefarious.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/protube-block-ads-on-video/id6...

flyingshelf•about 15 hours ago

Why not use YouTube in Safari then? Haven't seen ads in years. Plenty of options to block them already.

skarz•about 14 hours ago

Does YouTube in Safari play in background/with the screen off?

cedws•about 14 hours ago

Holy crap I didn't know such a thing could exist, thank you. It's so responsive too.

Please delete this before anyone sees it :)

overflowy•about 16 hours ago

Nope. Only Browser that can on iOS is Brave.

red369•about 4 hours ago

Safari with the uBlock Origin Lite extension works well for me - even with "Web page Contents and Browsing History" permission set to 'Deny' for all websites.

kioleanu•about 16 hours ago

I don’t have YouTube ads with Safari and AdGuard

__david__•about 14 hours ago

I just tried AdGuard with safari and got YouTube ads. Do you have to configure something special?

ssl-3•about 16 hours ago

With Safari and the very first free-to-use extension I picked years ago (AdGuard, IIRC), I don't see any YouTube ads on iOS.

hmokiguess•about 16 hours ago

DuckDuckGo Browser can as well

delduca•about 8 hours ago

Wipr2 ftw

55555•about 13 hours ago

Is there an ad blocker for Chrome on iOS?

finchisko•about 14 hours ago

Why they don't use their rendering engine on ios at least in eu?

bozhark•about 6 hours ago

I know this isn’t feature request yet maybe somewhere knows more about this than I.

Can we get tab management on iOS too please?

ChrisArchitect•about 16 hours ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49319633

tomhow•about 13 hours ago

Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49319633 - Aug 2026 (279 comments)

nonameiguess•about 16 hours ago

Didn't see it even after updating, then read https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-ads-firefox-ios:

> This feature is experimental and is being introduced to the Firefox user base through a progressive rollout. It may not yet be available to all users. Additionally, remote improvements must be enabled.

Apparently, you can only block ads if you allow Mozilla telemetry. Thanks, dicks.

tomhow•about 9 hours ago

> Thanks, dicks.

Must we? Such vulgar swipes only weaken your position, making you seem like the bigger jerk. Please observe the guidelines, not because you owe Mozilla anything but because you owe this community and indeed yourself better than this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ssl-3•about 16 hours ago

Apparently, remote improvements became separated from telemetry in Firefox version 148: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remote-improvements#w_w...

Dylan16807•about 8 hours ago

> Thanks, dicks.

As opposed to all the browsers that don't have this feature?

It's not done yet. When it's done it will just be a normal feature with no requirements.

thesuitonym•about 11 hours ago

If Mozilla put even half as much time into working on Firefox as they do tarnishing its reputation, they'd dominate the market.

empyrrhicist•about 16 hours ago

There are some options under the debug menu which look relevant, but I wasn't able to get it to enroll.

yboris•about 11 hours ago

Deeply frustrating - I felt like Mozilla was gaslighting me -- I spent 3 minutes double-checking that even after updating Firefox minutes ago the option is still not visible to me.

Making an announcement when fewer than 40% of your customers will see the feature fees like (unintentional) gaslighting.

drewg123•about 16 hours ago

I HATE it when a company does a staged rollout of something after making a big announcement. If you're going to announce something, then don't stage the rollout. Its off by default after all..