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0 pointshappybuy7y ago0 comments

Many similar concerns were raised when the Safari API changed, in this case some of the specific limitations and concerns re the declarativeNetRequest approach may be valid – if so, I'd hope that the Chromium team take them on board and improve.

I think the concern re the 30,000 rule limit is misguided. Many of these adblock rule lists are extremely inefficient and should probably be pruned to have less rules.

Extremely good and effective adblocking across most websites can be achieved with significantly less rules.

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notafraudster7y ago

I personally use an adblocker not only to block ads, but also to block literally everything I don't like. In most websites, this means the social buttons, the comments section, all search functionality, anything in the header or navigation I won't click, related articles, top articles, other recommended articles, footers, links to privacy policies, parts of bylines that I don't care about, header images when I don't like them, posts in certain categories that I don't like, etc. I use filters to, for instance, block Slack links containing domains I know I'm not going to click. I have over 3,000 rules. I wrote the rules myself to be maximally specific and I am not confident that I could prune the list significantly, although I guess it's possible.

It would not surprise me if ad lists are substantially longer, because they have to incorporate the entire internet, not just the 0.001% of it that I visit.

I support the goals of efficiency and performance, and think developers should take those goals seriously, but I object when a browser places a hard cap on anything, because the number that cap should be at differs by use case and by user.

pers0n7y ago

Please share your rulelist

scarface747y ago

1Blocker for iOS can block everything you mentioned and doesn’t get access to your browsing activity to do it.

LamaOfRuin7y ago

according to https://1blocker.com/faq/ to have full functionality it gets access to your browsing activity.

1 more reply

auslander7y ago

Free Firefox Focus provides iOS Content blocker too, which you can use in Safari.

gorhill7y ago

> Extremely good and effective adblocking across most websites can be achieved with significantly less rules

Both uBlock and uMatrix can be used without any filter lists, simply using a default-deny ruleset approach, optional in uBO[1], main feature of uMatrix.

However, this approach requires a entirely different matching algorithm than the one matching algorithm picked by the declarativeNetRequest API.

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[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

feanaro7y ago

So is your proposal to impose an arbitrary rule on the maximum number of rules and simply have less efficient blocking (with regards to privacy and actual blocking, not performance) until some indefinite point in the future when someone will have potentially produced an equally efficient set of rules satisfying the arbitrary rule?

Tsubasachan7y ago

215,169 network filters ＋ 77,133 cosmetic filters

"30000 rules is enough for everybody"

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