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Show HN: Adblock-rust Manager – Firefox extension to enable the Brave ad blocker (github.com)

95 points by electricant ↗ HN
Firefox 149 ships adblock-rust (Brave's Rust engine, MPL-2.0) completely disabled with no UI. It's controlled by two about:config prefs with no WebExtension API, so you can't touch them programmatically from a standard extension.

This extension gives it a UI: ETP toggle (via browser.privacy API, instant), filter list manager with clipboard helpers for the manual about:config steps, and 8 preset lists. You can also add your own if you so desire.

17 comments

[ 6.4 ms ] story [ 38.7 ms ] thread
kgwxd
Don't want it. Tracker/Ad blocking should forever be an extension, maintained by someone with zero obligation to, or association with, the ad/tracking industry. A USER agent.
dartharva
The entirety of the web browser runs in userspace afaik. Whatever goes there and within is de facto a user agent.
embedding-shape
> Disable Firefox's built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection so adblock-rust handles blocking instead.

What concrete and practical differences are there between the two? I'm guessing because this exists, adblock-rust somehow is better than the built-in ETP? In what way?

I'm using ETP + uBlock Origin right now, and can't remember the last time I saw an ad, if I used this instead, what practical differences would I notice?

2ndorderthought
Cool project but I have to ask. Why not use brave?
recursive
I got turned off to brave with all the token stuff. Just my take.
gpm
I care a good deal that I trust the people who developed my browser. It's about the most critical piece of software in my life. From banking to professionally to personal life.

The people who developed brave used brave to impersonate people and defraud their users out of money by asking for donations using other peoples names [1]. I don't trust them at all. Thus I don't use their browser.

And, unsurprisingly, this is part of a pattern of bad behavior, not a one off criminal act by otherwise trustworthy people, for some examples [2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20181221180137/https://twitter.c... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

[2] https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45#issue... and https://lobste.rs/s/iopw1d/what_s_up_with_lobste_rs_blocking...

dartharva
Brave runs Sluggish and causes random temperature spikes on both Windows and Linux on my laptop like no other browser does.
RandomGerm4n
Can this extension effectively block ads on YouTube? When I manually enabled the Rust ad blocker in about:config and added filter lists there, ads still appeared on YouTube and some porn sites. While uBlock Origin blocks everything.
thesuitonym
If it can't, plain old ublock Origin can.
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