Ad blocking in Vanadium?

TalentedQuill

Is there any way to block YouTube ads in Vanadium?
And yes I know other browsers support it but I am asking specifically about Vanadium.

Xtreix

TalentedQuill Currently not, Ad blocking on Vanadium is essentially a convenience feature and the list of blocks is not yet very large.

Front-ends such as Libretube and Clipious are possible but this apps are regularly broken because of Google's decisions (I can't go into details).

Another alternative which isn't perfect but which I think works better, is to use the official Youtube site via IronFox on Accrescent with uBlock Origin to block ads, IronFox is a fork of Mull from DivestOS that activates Fission unlike Firefox, it's a laudable project but I still wouldn't recommend it in place of Vanadium for main browsing, especially with extension support, IronFox still has a long way to go to catch up with Chromium and Chromium is still moving forward.

Velocity9490

TalentedQuill As @Xtreix mentioned, you can use IronFox if you want a browser with a real adblocker. You can also use NewPipe to watch YouTube videos without ads.

Laurent

TalentedQuill I use brave which also allows me to create music playback playlists and listen to them offline, block all YouTube ads, all ads on the internet, I don't see better browsers

Xtreix

TalentedQuill Or as @Laurent mentioned, you can also use Brave, it slipped my mind because I don't use it, it's based on Chromium which makes it a better choice for security,it's not available on Accrescent, you have to DL it via Sandboxed Google Play or the .apk file via Obtainium.

GrapheneOS

Xtreix Vanadium has a proper network-level ad blocking implementation. It does not have complex dynamic rules or cosmetic filtering via CSS at the moment. YouTube ads can't be blocked with declarative network-based filtering but rather require invasive changes to the site which are regularly changed to keep up with it changing.

Firefox doesn't support sandboxing on Android and using a fork of it doesn't change that. It doesn't enable a sandbox since it doesn't have one, let alone the 2nd layer of sandboxing offered by the V8 sandbox and modern exploit protections.

Velocity9490 Vanadium has a real adblocker. It does not have injection of JavaScript and other dynamic features required to bypass YouTube ads.

Laurent DNS filtering can't block YouTube ads anymore. It will eventually likely become impractical for extensions to reliably work around it without getting blocked.

TalentedQuill

I'm disappointed that despite my efforts in the original post this still became yet another thread with browser suggestions. I really just wanted to know if there's some way to get YouTube ads blocked in Vanadium. Would it be possible to compile Vanadium myself to add uBlock Origin support or something along those lines?

Laurent

TalentedQuill Maybe with the DNS parameter but I still had a little ad when I used it on android.

Laurent

TalentedQuill dns.adguard-dns.com

Xtreix

TalentedQuill I'm disappointed that despite my efforts in the original post this still became yet another thread with browser suggestions

You got an answer to your original post, the answer is no, so, the only alternative for what you want is to use a front-end or another browser that blocks ads better.

TalentedQuill Would it be possible to compile Vanadium myself to add uBlock Origin support or something along those lines?

UBlock Origin is no longer available on Chromium, gorhill has removed it. Only uBlock Origin Lite, which is the MV3 version, is available on the Chrome Web Store.

What's more, Vanadium doesn't support extensions at all, so I don't know if compiling it yourself with modifications can allow you to use the extensions, you won't get Vanadium at the end.

Laurent DNS-based ad blocking is ineffective on Youtube.

m4ri0g

TalentedQuill
this is how can be done.
get a raspberry pi, install pihole + tailscale (vpn) connect your phone to your vpn, configure pihole as dns and voila, all your add will be blocked by pi-hole anywhere you are. from within vanadium.
it is actually better than installing an app. or an extention which may increase your attack surface.
other alternative is use proton vpn and enable ads and malware blocking.
as for youtube.. use newpipe. do ~~not open it in your browser, unless that browser is brave but you do not want to have browsers suggested. so~~

TalentedQuill

Laurent Thanks for the suggestion but I have tried DNS-based filtering and it does not block YouTube ads for me.

Laurent

TalentedQuill Sorry for you... use brave for YouTube otherwise, even comments are disabled. I only use it and it is multiplatform

Laurent

Xtreix Oh yes I read the first comment too quickly, I didn't mind that it was for YouTube

TalentedQuill

Xtreix UBlock Origin is no longer available on Chromium, gorhill has removed it. Only uBlock Origin Lite, which is the MV3 version, is available on the Chrome Web Store.

This is false. I was able to right now go to the Chrome Web Store and install ublock origin.

Xtreix

TalentedQuill You're right, it's because it was unavailable during a period, gorhill had removed it, I guess some users complained.

patienttruth99

GrapheneOS today I learned that Vanadium has built in adblocking!

I found the toggle in the settings. What list does it use?

Xtreix

GrapheneOS Firefox doesn't support sandboxing on Android and using a fork of it doesn't change that. It doesn't enable a sandbox since it doesn't have one, let alone the 2nd layer of sandboxing offered by the V8 sandbox and modern exploit protections.

What does the page I get when I go to about:processes in IronFox mean ? I can get the same thing on Firefox for desktop. In fact, I discovered that I can open about:processes in Firefox for Android because I voluntarily tested it, I'm sure I couldn't do it before, what does it mean ?

Velocity9490

GrapheneOS This is what I was talking about:

GrapheneOS Vanadium has a proper network-level ad blocking implementation. It does not have complex dynamic rules or cosmetic filtering via CSS at the moment. YouTube ads can't be blocked with declarative network-based filtering but rather require invasive changes to the site which are regularly changed to keep up with it changing.

So no, not a full implementation of an adblocker like uBO or AdGuard.

Xtreix

GrapheneOS Yes, I reread the Mozilla documentation and actually got confused, but it's not super clear either, add to that that many people confuse the two topics, which leads to misunderstandings in discussions.

GrapheneOS YouTube ads can't be blocked with declarative network-based filtering but rather require invasive changes to the site which are regularly changed to keep up with it changing.

Yes, then the adversaries adapt, it's basically a game of cat and mouse.

GrapheneOS

patienttruth99 It's enabled by default and the toggle is to disable it per-site. It uses EasyList + EasyPrivacy as the baseline and also EasyList Germany when the German language is enabled as part of work towards adding support for a bunch of language specific filters.

GrapheneOS

Xtreix Multi-process is not sandboxing. Firefox doesn't have sandboxing in any form on Android.

GrapheneOS

Velocity9490 Not having scripting and not injecting CSS or JavaScript into pages doesn't make it not a real adblocker.