uBOL-home VS AdGuardDNS

> It allows for 30,000 dynamic rules

That is not what we mean by dynamic filters. From https://developer.chrome.com/blog/improvements-to-content-fi...

> However, to support more frequent updates and user-defined rules, extensions can add rules dynamically too, without their developers having to upload a new version of the extension to the Chrome Web Store.

What Chrome is talking about is the ability to specify rules at runtime. What critics of Manifest V3 are talking about is not the ability to dynamically add rules (although that can be an issue), it is the ability to add dynamic rules -- ie rules that analyze and rewrite requests in the style of the blockingWebRequest permission.

It's a little deceptive to claim that the concerns here are outdated and to point to vague terminology that sounds like it's correcting the problem, but on actual inspection turns out to be entirely separate functionality from what the GP was talking about.

> Giving this ability to extensions can slow down the browser for the user. These ads can still be blocked through other means.

This is the debate; most of the adblocking community disagrees with this assertion. uBO maintains a list of some common features that are already not possible to support in Chrome ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b... ) and has written about features that are not able to be supported via Chrome's current V3 API ( https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as... ). Of particular note are filtering for large media elements (I use this a lot on mobile Firefox, it's great for reducing page size), and top-level filtering of domains/fonts.

For an extension to be entirely declarative, it must package all the scripts to inject anywhere, the scripting.registerContentScript API doesn't allow injecting code as string[1], the content scripts must be part of the package.[2]

There is userScripts API which allows injecting code as string, but it's impractical as in Chromium-based browsers this requires extra steps by the user to enable the API.[3] In Firefox, the documentation for this API has the following note[4]:

> When using Manifest V3 or higher, use scripting.registerContentScripts() to register scripts

* * *

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

[2] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/tree/main/chromium...

[3] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/userS... ("Availability Pending")

[4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

AIUI it's because declarativeNetRequests requires the filters to be specified statically, see https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/decla...

Also note that the site you linked is for UBlock, which is a different extension from UBlock Origin. The UBlock Origin Lite (UBlock Origin for MV3) page has an explanation: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...

You can also use a declarative adblocker like uBlock Origin Lite [1], which only provides the browser with a list of elements to filter, but doesn't have any permissions to read content or perform requests. Or simply use your hosts file to apply OS-wide filtering with no browser add-ons needed: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Be aware that if you use these "passive" blocking methods, there are some sites like YouTube where you will see ads, because in these cases it's necessary to actually manipulate page content to hide them. What you can do is use a traditional adblocker but enable it only for these few sites where the declarative approach is not enough, take a look at [2] for more details.

[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

[2] https://seirdy.one/posts/2022/06/04/layered-content-blocking...

> The author's description even seems to praise Manifest v3 in the same way Google PR did.

No, it simply declares the goal of that add-on: to fully comply with declarative ways of MV3 and its limitations, and no uBO extended features that need workarounds to be implemented.

He's more strict to Lite than full version:

- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/17

Obviously a project like this has already been offered 7-figure deals already: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-issues/issues/44

And he declined all.

I've tried hosted Pi-Hole and AdGuard Home. They are good as long as I'm around to fix stuffs. Then I tested something which can be global (home) and also for individual devices -- Control-D, NextDNS, and Adguard DNS. All of them works pretty well. If I really have to choose, then it would be in the order of NextDNS > Control-D > AdGuard DNS. Affiliated with none, and have decided to subscribe to all three to further test them for this year.

https://controld.com

https://nextdns.io

https://adguard-dns.io

I used Pi-Hole, then went to NextDNS, then to AdGuard DNS, tinkered with AdGuard Home, and currently testing Control-D. They are all actually pretty good, similar features, and it has become just a matter of personal choice.

In all fairness, when I have some time and can invest in decent hardwares, I might go back to AdGuard Home with one of the paid services as backup for travel, and when for the other family members.

Pi-Hole works really well but once-a-while, when I'm traveling, it will decide to act up and it's a whole IT support with the family over phone for minutes if not hours. I'm not smart enough to setup a secure enough tunnel and the like, and haven't read up enough on the topic. This follows similar pattern with AdGuard Home.

NextDNS, AdGuard DNS, Control-D are easy and just works, especially with the devices that the family uses. I think I bought one of those AdGuard Lifetime license, so I use that to block client-side rendered ads in conjunction with either AdGuard DNS or NextDNS or Control-D. Right now, Control-D is doing pretty good with my test-drive.

https://adguard-dns.io

https://nextdns.io

https://controld.com

https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardDNS

In the case of AdGuard DNS being open source does not change the fact that it is a centralized service and using such a service is a matter of trust.

Then just unlock it. I am not sure which Adguard method you use, if you use a personal one which I recommend then you can just whitelist the domain that is used. If you use the general DNS then use https://adguard-dns.io/ to customize it. Trust me you will like it.

Google is your friend my dude.. https://ourpact.com/ and https://adguard-dns.io/

A feature request has been made for ECH support for AdGuard DNS, but there has been no further information added. You can follow the issue tracker here.

On my Mac Adguard DNS (i.e. adguard-dns.io) does not work without the Adguard app.