Technology

To quote someone from HN:

There is nothing special about the Troubled Engineer's setup. It's mostly a matter of using open platforms. With Firefox on the desktop and Fennec on Android (Graphene), you get full uBlock Origin support and therefore never see any ads anywhere, even on Youtube. On Android, there is also NewPipe that offers "free Youtube Premium" (play in the background and download).

It's really just uBlock Origin, a DNS blocker, and a few other small tweaks for YT. I use NewPipe on Android and Invidious instances. At this point I only see ads when setting up a VM and open the browser for the first time and forget I need to install uBO.

Below you'll find some other useful things, although they aren't exactly related to ad-blocking:

• Browser extensions against annoyances:

  • Cookie popups: Consent-O-Matic
  • Captchas: Buster

• I'd also suggest SponsorBlock — it has saved me so much time. There's also an option for TVs and streaming devices.

• If you're on iOS, consider turning off Background App Refresh. Only a few apps use Background App Refresh as Apple designed it, the majority are simply abusing it to get more data about you. If you don't have always-on VPN, you risk exposing your real IP.

• Patched apps are also a thing, and it's also possible to patch mobile apps yourself via ReVanced. While it's a decent option, it's also a security risk — I'm careful with it and don't use it with sensitive accounts.

TIL

Hosts file, some general CSS rules in my usercontent.css and uBlock. Multi-step blocking and easy enough to casually setup.