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161

AdGuard promises to keep filtering Facebook ads (media.piefed.social)

submitted 2 days ago by XLE@piefed.social to c/technology@beehaw.org

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From xcancel:

The team behind uAssets, the filter lists used by uBlock Origin, says it will stop fixing ad-blocking issues on Facebook. They say Facebook keeps finding ways around new fixes, making the work increasingly difficult to sustain.

This won’t affect AdGuard’s Facebook filters. We maintain our own rules and will continue updating them.

There’s nothing to celebrate here. It shows how hard it is for small, often volunteer-run teams to keep up with tech giants — and how important their work is for everyone who wants more control over what they see online

uBlock Origin offers some AdGuard rule sets, so I don't know exactly what this means for existing uBO users.

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 20 points 2 days ago

It's a small team, they do great work and keep the internet functional for a huge chunk of us, and they're burned out. It's a defeat.

Putting work into blocking any ads is phenomenal, and tackling Facebook as long as they did is heroic, full stop. I'm a little bummed that there seems to be no way to donate to the uAssets team.

However no one who uses adblock should be using Facebook either, it's a garbage platform that is literally 97% ads.

I hate Facebook with a burning passion, but I believe it's important to keep blocking ads on it because

Philosophically, ad blockers aren't just for niche websites, they are supposed to be general-purpose content blockers for literally everybody, which is part of the purpose of web browsers: to be a user agent. (I saw a lot of people use this point back when Google was contemplating implementing Manifest V3, which ultimately prevented as users from using a browser the way they chose)
I bet a lot of people who use content blockers are not nearly as invested in privacy technology as us, which is perfectly fine, especially if it provides a gateway into being more aware.
The more normalized content blocking is (e.g. if it's even for Facebook boomers who don't care about privacy), the harder it is for it to be written off as some niche activity.